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Heroes Community > Heroes 3.5 - WoG and Beyond > Thread: The Swords of Night and Day (re-released as an Era 2.4 mod)
Thread: The Swords of Night and Day (re-released as an Era 2.4 mod) This thread is 6 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 · «PREV / NEXT»
Alustor
Alustor


Famous Hero
ooo da :)
posted February 01, 2013 07:03 PM

while i agree with ali about the feeling that each unit that you own is unique and lvls up and gets better, i disagree about the loneliness feeling, i like the fact that that i have to command only one hero, more rpg style, but that again it depends on individual tastes.i enjoyed the hints that i received in the map, but next time i ll pay more attention to them , as i don t have them written down somewhere;diversity in units development is alway wellcomed, but i really enjoyed the map anyway;the landscape feels unfinished sometimes but hey, u don t het payed to make this and it doesn t matter that much, at least not for me

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted February 01, 2013 07:54 PM

Thanks for the kind words, Alustor. I need to repeat hints more and use different words each time to try to prevent misunderstandings, and maybe give some indication of which ones are the most important. Maybe I should put a summary in the Quest Log, similar to what Salamandre did in "300 Spartans".

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Maciek
Maciek


Known Hero
posted February 02, 2013 05:38 PM

Hello. I started playing the previous version (before the last update) of SND and at some point thought that I was stuck. I forgot what Tim said about where to find the Storm Giants, so I thought they were somewhere near Knu-Knu, but I couldn't find them.

Then I installed the latest version and restarted the map. This time I finished it without problems. The map is great, congratulations.

You wrote that the benefits of promotions are needed to get through all the Arena events. Well, that's not true. Also, I managed to crash the game. The save is here: click!
Just attack the elemental shifter.

Minor mistakes noticed:

In the East Wood, before the Gold Dragon battle, Jalery is called Jarley.

It seems that for every 10 EP above 140 you give the player one Inferno town and decrease income by 500 gold/day. But when the player reaches 480 EP, there are no more towns, but you keep decreasing income, which soon results in negative gold. Not that gold matters at that point. The save is here: click!
If you kill the nearby Bugs, your EP will reach 480.

Hints:

When defending, Vames takes very little damage. Or perhaps I just used some wrong settings?

In the Gauntlet of Grond, haste is a useful spell. There exists a tactics which makes sure that Jalery gets hit at most once in the whole battle and Vames gets hit at most twice per turn.

You can get some usefull artifacts from the Dark Towers. Gem of Isis is probably the best. Getting a second Gem(I got the second one from the Tomb of Imhotep) won't increase the bonus, though.

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted February 02, 2013 06:40 PM
Edited by JimV at 04:19, 07 Feb 2013.

Thanks a lot for the comments. I will take a look at the saved game and try to fix all those things later today. (I have been on my computer too long already this morning.)

The hint about the Storm Giants' locations was that you had to get through the Perilous Passes of the Stone Men to get to them. (I know, my hints are not great.)(I am working on a way to list them all on the Quest Log, but it is not easy. I guess that is why the WoG Team added a second quest log instead of giving us commands to use the standard QL, but the standard Heroes 3 QL is more convenient for players to use.)

In the first posted version, it was necessary to win 10 Gauntlets and 10 Labyrinths to get all the Arena bonuses. It is easier now (6 and 8 wins), but I am very still surprised you could get through all those and the Gladiator Ladder without any training promotions (i.e., just a Swordsman and a Mage without any Deflection ability) to give extra hit points and Deflection. I don't think I could do that. But as they say, the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we are able to imagine. (I never imagined anyone would get to 480 EP either.)

The negative gold could be an advantage by using Songfx's trick (he used it when gold overflowed from positive to negative in "The Dragon Slaughter"): use the Marketplace to give all your gold to Red, and he will be able to recruit fewer troops for the final battle. However, it was an oversight which I will correct.

I probably should do something to vary the layout of the Gauntlet. Currently the same strategy works there always, except the Ogres do more and more damage, so you need promotions (I thought).

Congratulations on a well-played game!

I was about ready to retire from Heroes 3 because I am running out of interesting ideas to work on, so I appreciate suggestions for improvements.

P.S. Re your comment about Vames defending, the Yona Mod gives Swordsmen and Crusaders great defensive ability (50% Block), which makes the game a bit easier - this also works in "The King In Yellow".
______________________________________________
New Post:

I have fixed those bugs and uploaded a revised SwordsOfNightAndDay.exe as well as the fixed saved game (swords_1.Gm1) to the Box link.

I did my Arena calibration under WoG 3.58f, so without benefit of the Yona Mod. Disable Yona for a harder game.
_______________________________________________
Apropos of nothing, I wanted to try a plasma-beam weapon, similar to the Ice Cannons but with a linear trajectory rather than a parabola, so I made some shooting heads:

I haven't thought of a good story for integrating them into either SND or SND II, though, so I may never use them. They were fun to work on, anyway.

Next idea: large Medusa heads which shoot paralyzing rays out of their eyes. (Might be useful in a map of "The Odyssey.")
_____________________________________________________
February 6, 2013 - Re-uploaded HiddenSpells.exe with a different Water Armor artifact (bottom left):

It is probably not worth re-downloading, but I like the new one better.

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Maciek
Maciek


Known Hero
posted February 08, 2013 01:22 AM

Perhaps the Generator in SND could have that plasma-beam weapons as defences and the Bugs could 'accidentaly' trigger them?

In the picture on page 3 of this thread your Mod Manager shows version 0.017. My Mod Manager shows version 0.013 even though I downloaded Era from link in the first post in "Era II" thread. Weird.
Hidden Spells crash on map start and I also have 2 crashes in King in Yellow. Perhaps I have a wrong Era version?
Anyway, I put saves from King in Yellow and all the crashlogs here.

I really liked the Genies' games in King in Yellow.

About Arena in SND:
 Gauntlet:
   While there is a tactic that works there without promotions(but with +Defense from lower Gauntlet levels), I don't think it's an obvious one. My tactic against them improved as I fought more of them, so I'm not sure if there is any problem with them. I would need promotions if one pair of ogres could do at least 35 damage to Vames when he is under the effect of Shield spell or when one of the ogres from the first pair could do at least 25 damage to Jalery when he is not under the effect of Shield.
 Labirinth:
   The minotaur just loved Vames too much. Without Yona I'd probably need promotion(s) to survive.
 Gladiators:
   I read one of the masseges that pop up before this fight as a hint ('whose blood will stain the sand?' or something like that). Still, Spartacus eventually did get to Jalery when there was one or just over one unit left in the stack. After that, I barely won with Vames defending and Leora casting Cure every turn. Without Yona I'd surely need promotions to get through this battle.
 Exotic beasts:
   I think the Winged Warrior is more powerfull than the other two. I don't think it's possible to beat it without promotions and without Yona. Not sure about the other two.

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted February 08, 2013 04:40 AM
Edited by JimV at 20:51, 08 Feb 2013.

Crashes:

Hidden Spells seems to have a problem with a memory address where the ARTIFACTS.DEF should be, on your system. This might be because some memory addresses have changed in Era 2.43 (I am running 2.41), but more likely is because the address I found which works on my system does not work on all systems. This address was used to fix a minor problem in Era 2.40 and earlier versions which Bersy fixed in Era 2.41, so it is no longer necessary and I have removed the "fix" in the current (just now) uploaded version. (Here.).

The KIY version you are running is not the current one which is here. It seems to be the Era 2.3 version. Prior to Era 2.4, the WoG version number returned by the UN:V command was 359. In Era 2.4 it changed to 400, so some routines which checked for WoG 3.58 vs. WoG 3.59 had to be changed. In comments posted at the Era II Mods and Maps thread, Bersy indicated that he had found this problem with the version of KIY posted there, and (I thought) had fixed it. (If you downloaded the KIY mod from Bersy's link and got the old version that way, I must have misunderstood Bersy's comment.)

Anyway, I will fix the saved games and upload them to (my) KIY link, in an hour or so.

I am sorry for these problems.

Thanks for the interesting comments. I like the idea of using the robot heads to defend the Generator in SND.

As threatened, I have made some Medusa heads which shoot paralyzing (stone) rays. They are less likely to hit stacks because they only target one hex, whereas the Ice Cannons and Robot Heads hit seven hexes. I think I would have to add more heads, or change from random targeting.

_________________________________________
The two saved games have been fixed (to run under Era 2.4x) and uploaded to my King In Yellow link.
_________________________________________
Version 1 of a custom battlefield for the Generator in SND:

Note that the glitched, random firing of the automatic defense system's plasma beams has interacted with the electromagnetic field of the Generator to produce a Maciek Warp Hole! Or something like that. (The beams must have crossed.)

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Bersy
Bersy


Honorable
Supreme Hero
posted February 08, 2013 07:31 PM

Looked at the version I've uploaded. Didn't find any 358..400 numbers, which means that I simply removed the check (mod for Era is using TE executable anyway).

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted February 08, 2013 08:49 PM

Thanks for checking, Bersy. The pre-Era 2.4 version must have been downloaded some time ago.

In other news, I have uploaded SwordsOfNightAndDay.exe again with the modified Generator battle as discussed above. I have not made another complete play-test with the change, but tested quickly as follows:

1) Start a new game.
2) Use the cheat codes (Tab-) wogeyeofsauron, wogshadowfax, and wogsaruman so that I could Fly Leora directly to the Generator on Day One.

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Maciek
Maciek


Known Hero
posted February 08, 2013 11:33 PM

Haha, to me that thing next to the cursor in the last picture looks somewhat like a giant, electric medusa.. er.. I mean jellyfish (jellyfish in English = meduza in Polish).

About Medusa Heads attacks:
How about the heads shooting beams from each eye in one (randomly chosen) direction, hitting and stoning everything in that line?

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted February 09, 2013 12:12 AM
Edited by JimV at 20:28, 10 Feb 2013.

I considered affecting every hex along the path but a) it doesn't make sense to me (it should be what the Medusa looks at, and it can only look at one thing at a time); b) it would potentially affect too many creatures; and c) it adds a lot of complexity, for instance, what if the gaze only touches a small part of a hex, does that hex count?

Initially I was going to make the gaze come out of both eyes, but that adds complexity also, for example, one line could be significantly shorter than the other (for nearby hexes at a sharp angle), and would arrive faster. So I made the gaze come out of "the third eye".

In English, there is a type of jellyfish which is called a medusa, I guess because it has long, wavy tentacles (like Medusa's hair), and it paralyzes its prey.
___________________________________________________
Added the opening of the third eye:

___________________________________________________
I decided the Hidden Water Spell, Wave of Fury, was not powerful enough because usually it can only hit one or two stacks, so I have increased the width of the wave from two hexes to three:

(The screen-captures of the animation only catch about every 10th frame.)
This change uses WaveQ0.bmp-WaveQ5.bmp in Mods/HiddenSpells/Data instead of WaveP0.bmp-WaveP5.bmp (because I don't like to overwrite earlier versions), so if HiddenSpells.exe has not been installed previously, or the mod is deleted (completely) before installing the current version, then the saved game HSPT5.GM1 will not be able to demonstrate the water spell, because it uses the two-hex version.

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted February 10, 2013 09:20 PM

JimV, since you update quite a lot, next time can you please give the mods their proper names so they look like this in the manager:



Otherwise, they have to be corrected every single time.

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Bersy
Bersy


Honorable
Supreme Hero
posted February 10, 2013 10:03 PM

Nice ideas and implementation, Jim! Seems like we definitely need Sav's battle figures library for native animation.

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted February 10, 2013 11:44 PM
Edited by JimV at 21:12, 16 Feb 2013.

Thanks for the encouragement, Bersy. As I have said, with your Era enhancements almost any crazy idea can be implemented. I am not familiar with Sav's battle library but I suppose that it would make animations much easier and better.

Artu, as a young engineer I was in a meeting that included the Manager of GE Steam Turbine Engineering, Jack Downs. When it was time to make a decision, he slowly counted the people around the table: "... 10, 11, 12. Well, my 13 votes say ..."

I am not quite that undemocratic, but I would need a few more votes to sway me. I agree there are too many names for the sequel: "Swords of Night and Day 2", "The Ice King", and "Hidden Spells", but my problem is that all of them describe main points of the map, so I like all of them. If I had to chose one, it would be the original idea for the map, "Hidden Spells".
____________________________________________________
I am thinking of making some new artifacts: Ice Cannon, Plasma Head, Paralyzer Beam, Flamethrower, and Chaos Cannon (shoots Hellballs). They would replace some existing miscellaneous-slot artifacts, for convenience in using them in the Map Editor. Therefore the Artifact Boost script would not be applicable to them, and would either be disabled or modified (allowing me to re-use some of its Claimed Variables and Flags). Up to five of them could be equipped. The number of shots of each would depend on the Heroes Magic skill and Power. For example, the Ice Cannon might fire 1/4 as many times as the Hero's Power if the Hero does not have Water Magic, but as many times as the Hero's Power if the Hero has Expert Water Magic. The shots would fall randomly, but would not target a friendly stack directly. However they could affect a friendly stack that was next to the target hex, but at reduced damage depending again on the Hero's Magic skill. Battles in which these weapons are used would be cleared of all obstacles so as not to have obstacles which match the ones used for the weapons. (These notes are preliminary thoughts - changes may be necessary.) (Maybe only one Chaos Cannon can be equipped, in the Shoulder slot.)
____________________________________________________

Ice Cannon, Plasma Cyclops, Stun Beamer, Flamethrower, Chaos Cannon

The first has graphics, DEF's, script, and some testing done. The next two have have some of those parts done but not all. The animation graphics and scripts have not been started for the last two.

It is said that the following is engraved on the barrel of the Chaos Cannon, in chaos glyphs: "For I shall smite thee with great vengeance, and you will know that my name is Lord Khorne!" So the animation should involve a mushroom cloud.

I may submit these under a new topic, if I think they are worth it. In the meantime, they give me something to work on.

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Maciek
Maciek


Known Hero
posted March 16, 2013 11:22 PM

I tried to start HS again. I did the following:
1. Disconnected from internet and told my antivirus that I'm playing a game, so that he doesn't mess with Era.
2. Installed Era 2.4 (I couldn't find 2.41) on SoD on disk E. (I have win7. I launched installer with admin rights.)
3. Installed HS, latest version, again installer launched with admin rights.
4. Turns out it was installed in game root directory in Mods/Mods/Hidden Spells, so I moved Hidden Spells folder to game root/Mods.
5. Started Mod Manager with admin rights.
6. Started game from Mod Manager.
7. When starting map, I chose Artifact bonus for myself and gold for AI and chose Impossible difficulty.
8. At map start I got a message with some variable checks. Something like: "If any of the below numbers is zero, XFiles.dll was not found or you're not under Era." None of the variables was zero.
9. Read the messages then saved game and went to the arena with Calladan, chose first option, wild beasts.
10. Game crashed, logs and save here: click!
11. Copy-pasted (not moved) XFiles.dll from Mods/Hidden Spells/Era plugins to game root directory.
12. Did steps 6-10 again except this time all variables checked in point 8 were zero: logs and save
13. Started game from Mod Manager, then tried loading one of the saves. When loading, I got message about XFiles.dll missing. Went to the Arena and chose first option. Game crashed.
14. Repeated 13 for the other save. Result the same.
15. Deleted the extra XFiles.dll from root and repeated 13 and 14. Didn't get any message while loading but the game still crashed when I chose first option at the Arena.

Also, I compared the XFiles.dll from SND and HS using Notepad++ and it said they were the same. Should it be like that?

-----------------------------------------------

I replayed SND, without Yona this time. 'Moon Bees' are labelled 'Sun Seeds' in battle.
Finnished in 22 days instead of 49. It's the first time that I get a 500 score in a heroes map. Here's how it went, in case somebody is interested:

Warning! There may be SPOILERS below!

Day 2: Visited Woodshire to get bonus movement from stables. Then went towards the Arena.

Days 3-5: Going towards the Arena.

Day 6: Reached the Arena. Did Gauntlet of the Grond 6 times (didn't need Haste).
Then Wild Beasts (2 Demons, a Unicorn and a Winged Warrior) to get movement.
Then got Poison Arrows and went back to the Arena. Spellpoints left 79/210.
Next, Minotaur (once), and Wild Beasts again to recharge movement.
Minotaur ate up a lot of spellpoints. Didn't fight Winged Warrior this time due to too low mana.
Visited nearby Well and back to the Arena again. Fought Minotaur once more, then first 4 Gladiators.
Recharged spellpoints in the Magic Spring near Tim and went back to the Arena.
Finnished Gladiator Ladder and fought Minotaur twice more. Low on spellpoints again (16 left).
Chose Wild Beasts in the Arena to recharge movement. Didn't fight the moving one (Elemental Shifter) to conserve spellpoints.
Used Town Portal, did the Crow quest and stopped at the Well closest to the Arena. Finally ended turn.

On day 6 I burned over 800 spellpoints, got 82 EP, Poison Arrows, Golden Bow, Bow of the Sharpshooter,
both Klingon Artifacts, +19 Attack and +21 Defense. Spell hotkeys were usefull to increase casting speed. Not only real time.
Without hotkeys, Leora could cast a spell more-or-less every second action of her troops.
With hotkeys, she could do that every single action (here, waiting or getting good morale also counts as an action).

Day 7: Visited the Well, then fought the Minotaur 3 times, all Wild Beasts once (central one was Chimera this time),
visited Knu-Knu to tell him what I already know about Sierpinski's Gasket.
I didn't know if it would be completely the same as in previous game, but I correctly guessed that it was.
At this point, spellpoints were at zero and there was no way to recharge them until next day. End of turn? Nah.
Went back to the Arena to fight all Wild Beasts (central one was Elemental Shifter), then did the Wild Bull quest (used Tent as a tank) and went back
to the Well next to the Arena. Then ended turn.

Day 8: Recharged spellpoints at the Well, fought the Minotaur last time and Spartacus once more because, why not?
(attack +4 and defense +3 from Spartacus this time)
Fought all Wild Beasts, then used Town Portal and got all the promotions at once (except the Enchanter one).
Killed the Rabbit and got Tim's Ring. Then went towards the Tomb of Imhotep, but didn't reach it. End of turn.

Day 9: Looted the Tomb clean, and, with bonus movement from it, all 4 Dark Towers. Chain Titan's Bolt was doing all the job.
Got to the Arena (fought Wild Beasts to recharge movement), went to Knu-Knu to give Qubit some resources, then back to the Arena
(to get more movement points) and through the East Wood to the Generator. Fought Bugs and one Stone Man, then ran out of movement.
End of turn.

First Jalery's spell was resisted in the battle versus Bugs. Then they moved and the turrents shot many times.
Jalery didn't get another turn, but Vames somehow won the battle alone. Stone Men were doing laughable damage, but they were quite tough.

Days 10-11: Fought some Stone Men and bought 2 liters of Elektrum from the Storm Giants.

Day 12: Poured Elektrum into Fuel Tank, recharged spellpoints at a nearby Well and activated the Portals.

Day 13: Gathered some Sun and Moon Seeds.

Day 14: Went through a Portal and approached the Arena.

Day 15: Visited Arena (+movement), Town Portaled to get the Enchanter promotion and stable bonus. Back to the Arena
and then through Portal. Shut down Portals and went to the Generator. Got Fire Water (end of movement).

Day 16: Banged head against Labirinth wall to get bonus movement. Got Golden Sword of Day and Temple of the Sun bonuses.
Movement ended close to the Labirinth.

Day 17: Banged head against Labirinth wall to get bonus movement. Got Ice Water, then went back to the labirinth for more movement
and got Black Sword of Night and Moon Temple bonuses. Town Portaled back to Woodshire. Movement ended close to the Arena.

Day 18: Got bonus movement from the Arena, then poured Elektrum into Fuel Tank.

Day 19: Went to the place where Grail was buried and ended turn.

Day 20: Dug out the Grail.

Day 21: Went through the Portal towards the Arena.

Day 22: Recharged movement at the Arena, then Town Portaled to Woodshire to install the Grail.
Went back to the Arena to recharge movement and through the Portal to Megathon's lands.
Ignored the Peasants and reached Megathon the same day.

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted March 17, 2013 03:16 AM
Edited by JimV at 05:02, 17 Mar 2013.

I downloaded the saved game, and fought Gorgons and Griffins in the arena successfully:

I also have a Windows 7/32-bit system. I had lots of problems before the first 100 or so Windows updates came out, but not since then. I think Windows 7 with its Service Pack 1 installed is okay. And provided you get around the Program Files security problem by installing Heroes 3 under My Documents.

Someone recently said the HiddenSpells.exe was corrupted as in a bad archiving by WinRAR, but I repacked the file since then. Others have been able to install and play the map (I know because they emailed me for hints) but I haven't heard from anyone recently - although there have been more downloads.

If I had access to your machine I expect I could find out what is going wrong and fix it, but at long distance it is a difficult guessing game. I will try making a new Heroes 3 folder and installing it from the download myself to see if that works on my system. If it does I am not sure what else to look at, but maybe I will think of something. I am sorry for your difficulties.

The installation should be as in the README notes.  XFiles is (or can be) the same for both SND and HS but they are separate mods due to other differences. I never have them both active at the same time, so each needs its own copy of XFiles. If I have been developing XFiles sometimes it gets locked so that Era can't load it, so I added that message to check. As long as you see no zero addresses, it has been loaded okay. Don't try to play if you see zero addresses.

Leora can cast spells at each turn of one of her troops, except for morale bursts, with or without the hotkeys, on my system (also provided she has not cast a spell of Elder Magic, in the case of HS).

Thanks for the note about the Moon Bees. I have fixed that and re-uploaded the file.

My top score in play-tests was 496. Then there were some complaints that the map was too hard, so I made it easier, as discussed previously in this thread. It sounds like I went too far. Maybe I should give Megathon some Dragoliches.

Edit - I forgot your comment about Mods/Mods as I was writing this. Checking, I see I made a mistake repacking the archive and will have to repack it again. Maybe that has something to do with your problem (probably not, I'm not that lucky). I will post again when I have the re-pack uploaded.

Update - I have repacked HiddenSpells.exe, created a new Heroes 3C folder, installed Era 2.43 (Bersy's latest download) in it, installed the re-packed HS in that, and started the game and fought an Arena battle successfully. Which probably has nothing to do with your problem, which I will have to think about some more. I suspect some of the UN:C addresses, but they work on my XP and W7 laptops as well as on some other people's machines.

Another update (to this post) - I noticed something which troubles me. The console window at the end of my Era installation said that Era 2.43 was installed, but the version number that my script reads is 2400, not 2430. There was a memory change which required a new UN;C address from Era 2.40 to Era 2.41, and I have a test for that in my script. However, the 2.40 address seems to be working. Maybe I have to install the separate Era 2.43 update (which I thought was only for people who had 2.40 installed previously) to get 2.43. (The Era 2.41 DLL gives a version number of 2410.) I used to include the Era.dll for 2.41 in the HS package, but stopped doing that when Era 2.43 was released. I think this has something to do with your problem but I am not sure how, yet.

Further update, or the plot thickens - Okay, I executed the Era 2.43 update, and now my Era version number is ... 243 (not 2430). My script expects 2400 or 2410 and applies 2410 addresses for anything above 2400, but not for 243. To complicate things further, it looks like more memory changes have occurred and a new address is needed for Era 2.43, which I will have to find. I had a warning about this is the script, but only for numbers above 2410. If you are using Era 2.43, this could be the cause of your problem. In any case, I will have to make an update for Era 2.43 users, after I find the new addresses, some time tomorrow (actually tomorrow turned into today as I typed this, here).

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted March 17, 2013 03:01 PM
Edited by JimV at 17:56, 17 Mar 2013.

I have found a new memory address for Hidden Spells which works for me under Era 2.43. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work for everyone, but I am about 75% confident that it will. The installation archive has been updated at Box.com.

The HiddenSpell script now checks for three types of Era (Era 2.0 to Era 2.40, version code = 300 or 2400; Era 2.41, version code = 2410; and Era 2.43, the latest version as I type, version code 243), and sets the memory address accordingly. Other, unknown version codes will cause an error message to be displayed. The map will probably not be playable if this error message occurs (until I find a memory address for that version).

This clumsy procedure is necessary mainly because my knowledge of the internal workings of Heroes 3, Era, and Windows is very limited. Probably a more universal method exists, but most of what I know came straight out of the ERM Help manual and Era manual.

In each of my mod threads I think I give the Era version it was developed under. Some of these older mods may also not work under Era 2.43, which I installed yesterday. So far I have only tested Hidden Spells under it.

Update - erratum - The sfx command in HiddenSpells.exe was activating "Hidden Spells", which should have been "HiddenSpells" (which it now is). Find list.txt under Mods and delete the line which says "Hidden Spells" to get rid of the non-existent version.

Also, I have tested "Dragon Peaks" under Era 2.43 and it also needs a number of changes for version code effects. I will probably have those done some time later today.

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master_learn
master_learn


Legendary Hero
walking to the library
posted March 17, 2013 04:51 PM

Quote:
The HiddenSpell script now checks for three types of Era (Era 2.0 to Er 2.40, version code = 300 or 2400; Era 2.41, version code = 2410; and Era 2.43, the latest version as I type, version code 243), and sets the memory address accordingly.


I think it's very cool and player friendly,if the map is playable under previous versions of Era.
Do you plan to make the SND script do the same?
____________
"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted March 17, 2013 05:54 PM

M_L, I haven't checked the SND mod under Era 2.43 yet, but it seems from Maciek's comment that it still works for him. (I am assuming he is using Era 2.43 but have not had that confirmed.) I will eventually check all my mods under Era 2.43, but give priority to any for which problems are reported.

I have added the same modifications and checks to Dragon Peaks now, and re-uploaded it. I have checked Artillery Artifacts and it seems to work okay under Era 2.43.

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Maciek
Maciek


Known Hero
posted March 17, 2013 07:12 PM

SND and Artilery Artifacts both work for me on Era 2.43.
HS - I still get a crash like previously (I guess I'll try to play on an older XP computer later.), on both 2.40 and 2.43. Also, on 2.43 I get a warning at map start that Era version 2430 is unknown.

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JimV
JimV


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted March 17, 2013 08:03 PM
Edited by JimV at 04:35, 18 Mar 2013.

Thanks for the new information. It sounds like there is a more recent version of Era 2.43 than the one which I downloaded when it was first released, perhaps to correct the 243 version number, which I see, to 2430 which would correspond to 2400 for Era 2.40 and 2410 for Era 2.41. This would explain your crash, I think, as it means I need to add version code 2430 to my set of checks (and hope that was the only change so that the memory address for version code 243 works also for version code 2430).

Working ...

HiddenSpells.exe has been uploaded again, with changes to recognize version code 2430 as well as 243. I hope this works for you.

I will also have to make the same change to Dragon Peaks, in a short while.

Edit - I skipped over the part where you said you had a crash under Era 2.40. My hypothesis does not explain that. Hidden Spells worked for me under Era 2.40, and a little better under 2.41. So probably the problem has not been fixed, although the changes may help some.

Update - I've spent several hours so far trying to find a PC that HS won't work on under Era 2.40, so I can see why not, with no success. It works on a couple old XP machines, and on my Windows 7/32-bit machine. I use the default Heroes3.ini settings that are installed by Era2.4.exe, and I have my Heroes 3 folder under My Documents. When playing HS I have WoG, Fast Animation, Secondary Skills Scrolling, and Yona also enabled, at lower priorities than HS, and no other mods enabled. (Another mod which used v325 would interfere in a way which could cause your crash, but that is not likely because the HS map does not allow wogification.) I log onto my PC's as their administrator, but do not use any compatibility or administrator settings to run h3era.exe. Basically I haven't made any changes after clicking Install for Era2.4.exe and HiddenSpells.exe. In the case of the old XP machines, after the two installs I just clicked the Era II icon on my desktop. (They only have the mods which come with Era and HS.)

Maybe Windows 7/64-bit has a different memory structure or something, if that is what you have, but I don't have one to test on. I am not sure what else to do at this point, but will try to think of something.

To summarize, Era 2.43 would have been a problem before the recent changes, but HS was developed under Era 2.40 (and 2.41).

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