Shadow Realm - open beta tests

[Rodmar18]

Eldricth Altar:

Of all altars allowing for production of ancient creatures, the Eldritch Altar is the only one that doesn't call:

TEXT​

UNLOCKS_UNITS​

Unlocks Units:​

 

[Refineus]

I'm fortunate to have access to both Wasteland Expansion and Shadow Realm Expansion. I been working on a compatibility patch for all mods required.

I stumbled on two problems. The Archon Dwelling is not linked to the Shadow Realm layer and can never spawn upon map generation. Is it turned off temporarily or it was never linked? I can link it.

Goblins has no benifits from wetlands in the Shadow Realm. I can add this as people has added it for Autumm and Tundra already.

Should Shadow Realm be disliked or hated by vanilla races? The Shadow sickness might be enough, but cities can have similar as Subterranean has penalties?

 

[HousePet]

The Archon Dwelling is not linked to the Shadow Realm layer and can never spawn upon map generation.

Huh???
I'm quite sure that it spawns (unless someone broke something when I wasn't looking).
I'm not sure what you mean by "is not linked".

 

[Refineus]

Huh???
I'm quite sure that it spawns (unless someone broke something when I wasn't looking).
I'm not sure what you mean by "is not linked".

Where the surface, underground and Shadow Realm dwelling are in the Dwelling passes. Only the Dragon dwelling is set for shadow realm while archon is not properly set up.

 

[HousePet]

Looks set to me.

 

[Refineus]

View attachment 642743
Looks set to me.

Ah my bad I created a compability on top of Steam workshop content which is outdated. I saw also its linked in the Dropbox

 

[Refineus]

The Elder Frost Dragon needs a replacement of the "Pledge of Protection" skill. It's useless for everyone except Frostlings

 

[HousePet]

Ah my bad I created a compability on top of Steam workshop content which is outdated. I saw also its linked in the Dropbox

Phew, I thought I might have to explode at someone for breaking things. XD

 

[Rodmar18]

Should Shadow Realm be disliked or hated by vanilla races? The Shadow sickness might be enough, but cities can have similar as Subterranean has penalties?

I believe that units moral and population/cities happiness are treated independently, so I'd be for a city penalty, on top of the units penalty, and for units penalty on top of Shadow Sickness.
If Decoction and Shadow Walking can't cancel a unit's moral penalty caused by climate, then perhaps, add a moral penalty to Shadow Sickness, and go without any climate penalty.


I'm on leave for now, but I can report seemingly issues with SR assets, as seen on the campaign's second scenario:

• Virtually any MCU link now wrongly points to first Location page in the ToW (there is at least one exception). In French, first page is Magic Academy (Académie de magie), but I guess that it's more about default linking to first page than a wrong explicit link to "Magic Academy" page. This wrong link is evidenced both when clicking on the link in the header of a treasure site, and when clicking on the MCU's description.

• There are several hexes that stop a unit's movement and reset its destination. No movement point is lost, the unit simply halts. The player has to manually reorder the movement. All these hexes are adjacent to a void hex. I can provide screenshots to locate them on the scenario 2 map, later. Three of them are between Gladenis and Chearion, at or south to the Twin Peaks.

 

[Hiliadan]

I need to update the thread on page 1 with the latest fixes everyone brought.

To answer stuff from the "closed beta" thread:

It seems that the Heart of Shadows structure clb is set up wrongly. Should I remove the flickering "glow effect" that's been fiddling the texture. If I fix it, It will look like this in the picture below:

View attachment 544336

Yes, please fix it, that's listed as a known issue on p.1:
Model - the Heart of Shadows' colour is buggy: at some zoom levels (but not others), it looks purple, see https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....284/00304CCAAA22A25E784917043C8401B4B8BFF51B/

The Shadow gate spawning inside mountains and in the water is probably because they are set as caves. Looking in the level generator.Rpk makes me think the game consider shadow gates as water caves respectively cave entrances placed in mountains. There might be no way around it.

Could you please specify at which part of the .rpk you are looking at to say that they are considered as Water Caves or at Cave Entrances "placed in mountains"? Would be useful for other modders I think (and possibly I could add the info on the Wiki's page on RMG).

Good luck with the Shadow Gates. I think I know what is going wrong, but I won't say anything because it might interfere with your ability to solve it.

Please send by PM or on Steam, I won't tell Refineus immediately but good to have all the leads!

@ all: is there anything listed in the first post which is actually fixed? https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/shadow-realm-open-beta-tests.1301141/post-26126920
We are planning to release an update of the mod around Christmas.

 

[Refineus]

What does it mean?

– Shadow Elf Apprentice’s Dispel Magic and Shadow Fire icon display in tactical combat should be switched: Dispel Magic in #7 and Shadow Fire in #2 (it’s currently the opposite)

Fairy fire and Dispel? Wrapped in Shadows is an aura.

- decide on this: "Infused and Night Guard: we've got an issue with their model, it has an armor but the unit doesn't have Armored. Not sure what we should do. Easiest would be to remove the armor maybe? Depending on how the model is done, should be do-able in the mod tool?"

I tried to remove the armour from the models and they look weird. Add armoured trait and then remove 1- defence from base stats to compensate. It would be easier.

@ all: is there anything listed in the first post which is actually fixed? https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/shadow-realm-open-beta-tests.1301141/post-26126920

All of these.

- Kyridarion the Shielder, have a skin texture looking like Humans/High Elves. Supposed to be fixed but still looks like a Human or High Elf.
- Shadow demons no longer have player colours
- Model - the Heart of Shadows' colour is buggy: at some zoom levels (but not others), it looks purple, see https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....284/00304CCAAA22A25E784917043C8401B4B8BFF51B/

 

[Hiliadan]

I corrected the Shadow Weed structure icon by replacing the Haste berries icon that was set for it.

Do you mean you worked on this? "- Shadow Weed shoud have the same icon as Flowers of Solace on the "paper map". Glass Furnace should have a resource site icon (like Magma Forge). Celestial Pool should have a Shrine icon." or the structure icon visible on the general strategic map?

Eldricth Altar:

Of all altars allowing for production of ancient creatures, the Eldritch Altar is the only one that doesn't call:

TEXTUNLOCKS_UNITSUnlocks Units:

I'm not sure to get what you mean. Do you mean the Eldritch Altar (BTW is the "cth" instead of "tch" a spelling mistake on your side or in the SR's files?) has no description in game?

Goblins has no benifits from wetlands in the Shadow Realm. I can add this as people has added it for Autumm and Tundra already.

Yes, please add the Wetland foraging, etc. I'm adding it as an Intermediate issue until it's fixed.

Should Shadow Realm be disliked or hated by vanilla races? The Shadow sickness might be enough, but cities can have similar as Subterranean has penalties?

I think that no, there should be no dislike. We kind of discussed that in the early stages of the expansion. That would be too impactful as a dislike on all terrain in the city's domain makes it unlivable. To be seen if balance reports show it is too easy to stay on the Shadow layer for non-natives but I doubt that.

Virtually any MCU link now wrongly points to first Location page in the ToW (there is at least one exception).

Could you please provide screenshots to illustrate? I find it very weird.
(also, it's already listed in the list of known issue, no need to report twice)

There are several hexes that stop a unit's movement and reset its destination. No movement point is lost, the unit simply halts.

Same, screenshots?

- decide on this: "Infused and Night Guard: we've got an issue with their model, it has an armor but the unit doesn't have Armored. Not sure what we should do. Easiest would be to remove the armor maybe? Depending on how the model is done, should be do-able in the mod tool?"

I tried to remove the armour from the models and they look weird. Add armoured trait and then remove 1- defence from base stats to compensate. It would be easier.

I would rather discuss that in the Development thread.

- Shadow demons no longer have player colours

What do you mean? The idea was the opposite: to add player's colours to Shadow Demons. I saw you asked about this somewhere else. I'm unsure where best to show the colours, could you maybe make some suggestions?

Regarding Kyridarion, was it a new fix after the release on Steam? Because I checked again on the version from Steam and his skin is still very much Elves and not as special as for other heroes.

I updated the list of known issues at the top of page 1 of the thread.

 

[Refineus]

Do you mean you worked on this? "- Shadow Weed shoud have the same icon as Flowers of Solace on the "paper map". Glass Furnace should have a resource site icon (like Magma Forge). Celestial Pool should have a Shrine icon." or the structure icon visible on the general strategic map?

Do you want those yellow flowers as an icon? Or you want to replace sprites?

Yes, please add the Wetland foraging, etc. I'm adding it as an Intermediate issue until it's fixed.

It's fixed.

What do you mean? The idea was the opposite: to add player's colours to Shadow Demons. I saw you asked about this somewhere else. I'm unsure where best to show the colours, could you maybe make some suggestions?

You wrote it: Shadow Demons currently appear entirely in the colour of the player who owns them instead of having only small parts of their bodies coloured.

So either its full colour or no colour? There is no in-between on these bugs. Either they will be randomly coloured and it's quite messy. No animals or monsters have player colour so why should demons have it? Also to make them player coloured we have to remake the model itself and add white on some parts otherly it won't display properly. So how do you like it?

A green or red shadow demon? Yellow?

Regarding Kyridarion, was it a new fix after the release on Steam? Because I checked again on the version from Steam and his skin is still very much Elves and not as special as for other heroes.

I updated the list of known issues at the top of page 1 of the thread.

Which version do you debug test? Locally or steam. In the steam version, he is of course white. Locally in the mod version, he has dark blue skin? Have you checked that?

If you also debug play the campaign with the steam version it's going nowhere with those bugs

 

[Hiliadan]

Do you want those yellow flowers as an icon? Or you want to replace sprites?

I'm unsure what you mean and I think the description is pretty clear: we want the "paper scroll" map (i.e. the one when you dezoom and go above the clouds) to have the following icons:
- Shadow Weed: same icon as Flowers of Solace
- Glass Furnace: as a resource site icon (like Magma Forge)
- Celestial Pool: as a Shrine icon

Regarding Kyridarion, I think I was also very clear: I used the Steam version. So I understand from your answer that it was fixed AFTER the release on Steam. Thanks.
For the campaign, I use the latest map files from the Dropbox.

For the Shadow Demons, we need this option:

Also to make them player coloured we have to remake the model itself and add white on some parts otherly it won't display properly.

Are you really sure we need to redo the model? Other units have only 1 mesh (or a few) and the colour is displayed through the alpha layer, etc. isn't it? So the only thing to change should be the alpha layer.
I guess we could also accept no colour, like for Ogres, etc. Any opinion of anyone on where the colour should be?

 

[Refineus]

I guess you want the structure of the sprites changed on the zoomed out map.

Are you really sure we need to redo the model? Other units have only 1 mesh (or a few) and the colour is displayed through the alpha layer, etc. isn't it? So the only thing to change should be the alpha layer.
I guess we could also accept no colour, like for Ogres, etc. Any opinion of anyone on where the colour should be?

This is how the foreground and background are displayed on player colours for example in slime green and slime red. Black is no colour while green and black represent the foreground and background. That means the texture needs to be changed and revamp the model into a white. I suggest to not do it as the shadow demon textures are quite black already. It's to much work if someone wants to do it I suggest spikes. But it's not worth it as I see it.

Only benefits if not change textures are that we can have golden shadow demons or black currant coloured shadow demons.

 

[Rodmar18]

Do you mean the Eldritch Altar has no description in game?

It has but the page in ToW lacks the "Unlock unit" line and subsequent link to the produced creature's page. Compare Eldricht Altar with other MCUs of the same ilk and you'll see. I provided the "unlock" localization key that is missing.

Could you please provide screenshots to illustrate? I find it very weird.
(also, it's already listed in the list of known issue, no need to report twice)

Likewise, just click on the link (on the strategic map's header when you select the site), and you can see that the ToW is opened at the first page, that is "Académie de magie" in French, or at the Magic Academy page in all languages (I don't know which behaviour is happening), instead of this site's page (though it exists in ToW).
I doubt a screenshot would be useful as there is no display error, only a linking error, apparently.

Same, screenshots?

There was one already in the folder /Exported Mod Files/Feedback/scenario2 on the DropBox. I dumped several others just already.
Apparently, they are all barren hexes adjacent to a void hex:
3 between Gladenis and Chearion (where there are two void hexes on the same line);
1 SW to Chearion, in the Twin Peaks;
1 in the south (western) area between two cities.
The anormal behaviour is that when you order a unit to cross the area, the pathfinder sets a course passing close to a void hex. The unit starts to move to its destination and stops at these hexes. You have to reissue the order to the same destination for the movement to be completed.

 

[Rodmar18]

Before I return to testing scenario 3 (Fire path), and without spoiling too much, can you reassure me that being about to loose most of my army due to attrition before gaining a city is intended (and then I'll rebuild an army). I have only so few resource income, and I've kept alive all the gathered and gained troops on my way. I even postponed freeing the last chamber until the very limit of the 10 turns timer because I suspected already I could have an issue with all those L2/L3 free units. Should I have know, I would have even postponed the liberation of the second chamber instead of letting them eat my gold. Those units are handy but not necessary to clear a path. Shall I send my army on suicide runs? I'm playing on easy.

 

[Hiliadan]

I'm asking screenshots to avoid spendign 5-10 minutes to see what you mean by opening AoW3 (my laptop is pretty slow). And without screenshot, it was pretty hard to guess what you described for MCU applied to the description seen from the strategic map.
Anyway, the list of known issues is updated now.

There was one already in the folder /Exported Mod Files/Feedback/scenario2 on the DropBox

This is definitely not a good space to put that. The /Exported Mod Files is a public folder visible by anyone with the link, so please don't put misc stuff there. If you need to store stuff, please rather use \Dropbox\AoW3-Shadow-Realm-expansion\drafts
Is it aow3_SR_scen2-oddHex.jpeg? So when your unit gets adjacent to the hex you're showing on the screenshot, it stops? Can you please provide a save?
Also, for the French localization, I'm disturbed that you write without caps. "ombremonde - steppes" = "Ombremonde - Steppes".

Regarding scenario 3B (I guess), you should ask on the campaign thread.

 

[Rodmar18]

As for the caps, I'll see and I can make the change (for once I get a feedback ), but it should be in the same style as for other layers: "surface" and "monde souterrain" in Balance mod. Sometimes less caps is better, when it's not a sentence. Those capitalized words will be seen on hover over a terrain hex, and as well under the minimap (layer's name). Perhaps "Ombremonde - steppes"?

To be honest I didn't know what "Exported Mod Files" is for, except that sometimes, I have to pick a new file from here. I move the feedback folder (mostly for Refineus's use) to the draft section then.

Hexed hexes: I retouched some screenshots for you to better see without a save. All selected hexes are the ones where units stop and forget their orders, that I am sure. I think this is because they are adjacent to a void hex, but one is adjacent to a SR "sacred forest" (dense vegetation) hex instead.

In the same folder, you'll find a save for this issue, and also to investigate about the bad linking to the ToW. I added screenshots before/after clicking on the link both in French and English, and it is still as I wrote: the first page of (Locations in) ToW is displayed for the selected language ("Académie..." in FR, "Abyssal.." in EN). It looks like it happens only for some sites, perhaps the SR versions of vanilla sites (Glass Furnace, Hallow Grove, Archon Fort are all okay for instance).

Last, you'll find screenshots of the page in ToW for Earth Altar and Eldritch Altar, so that you can see the difference.

 

[Hiliadan]

- SR Crystal Tree: SR Enchanted Armory in-game description (when on the strategic map) links to Magic Academy in ToW instead of actual Enchanted Armory (or rather, to the first entry in ToW?). This is also true for almost all the MCU introduced by the SR expansion.

Ok, I think that's because we made new versions of the sites such as Forbidden Sanctum, Crystal Tree, etc. but we hide them in the ToW. I'm unsure how we can solve that. Is it possible to link to the ToW entry of the "regular" structure (the one not from the SR expansion)? @HousePet and others. And so it means this issue does not apply to "almost all the MCU introduced by the SR expansion" but only to the copies of the surface's structures (so the Forge of Dreams for instance is not affected).