Big anouncement!

I have been thinking how to improve the manuals. I know most players won't even bother reading them when they have to click a link and see a massive document containing a lot of text. Because of this I have decided to create a mod that have the manuals included so they are accessible and easy to read, together with the option to warn players about certain mods and incompatibilities.

Essentials will be the name of the mod. The mod will feature only information add will not add new game features or settings to the game.

• The main purpose of the mod is to add the manuals of each mod to Warzone
  
• The host will have to specify which mods are being used in the game since the mod doesn't know this automatically. But by doing so the mod will warn the game creator if the added mods have incompatibilities (mod conflicts and unexpected behaviour). This way the game creator can make changes if needed (changing settings or adding / removing mods).
  
• Since some mod conflicts are really complicated to recreate the game creator might use mods with incompatibilities. The players playing the game will be warned about these incompatabilities when they open the game for the first time and will have the option to get a reminder every new turn.
  
• A game creator might forget to specify that a certain mod will be used in the game (by making last minute changes or just simply forgetting to add it) so players in the game will have access to every manual, even if the mod is not in the game.
  
• This mod will be manually(!) be updated. This means that some mod manuals might not exist (yet), certain mod incompatibilities are not added / removed and that mod manuals might not be up-to-date. If you find anything please tell me when the mod is public
  
• For mod creators: The mod will also be a showcase of the new UI.lua file I've created.
  

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Changelog

• Added Hybrid Distributions manual
  
• Added Hybrid Distributions 2 manual
  
• Special units are Medics has been updated and with it the exploit has been fixed
  

there are now manuals for:

• Gift Gold
  
• AI's don't play cards
  
• Limited Multiattacks
  
• Special units are medics
  
• Advanced Diplo Mod V4
  
• Hybrid Distribution
  
• Hybrid Distribution 2
  

While I'm writing these manuals I also try to fix the bugs with these mods and note them in the manual untill they're solved.

• Limited multiattacks bug : State : Bug noted to mod author
  The mod configuration tells you that when you the limit of multi attacks to 0 they will be infinite, but the mod doesn't let you the value to 0 and will create an alert to tell you. Even if the value goes through the mod will override it to 1
  
• Gift Gold bug : State : Not solvable(?)
  When gifting gold on T0 (before the first turn has been processed) your gold value in the top left won't get updated accordingly. Warzone let you use all of your gold but when you try to commit Warzone tells you can't due to your negative gold
  

The following mods are in queue to write a manual about

• Custom Card Package
  
• Connected Commanders
  
• Late Airlifts
  These are the mods I play the most games with, but if you miss a mod on this list please reply to this thread and tell why you think the mod should have more priority
  
• Promoted Mods
  
• Standard Mods
  
• Experimental Mods
  

nice bro

This is excellent. I also find some mods quite promising and can make for interesting games.

I have found that players need to be "trained" for modded play.

Do a series of games, adding one new feature at a time. Eventually you get a good group of people who enjoy the settings and can play competitively with them. I always make an effort to do this with new people - I've invited a few people to Warlight (I still can't call it "Warzone"!) recently and I'm taking them through a whole curriculum before they can jump into my preferred style of play.

the plan with these manuals is to have a general, accessible place where players can look up what mods do, how they work, how they can use them to their advantage and inform them if there is a chance of interference between mods.

i do agree that having a series of games where you would add more and more features is better to learn mods, but this takes time from both yourself and the players. in my experience players new to modded Warzone just step out quickly cos they don't understand the things mods add and learn everything the hard way (ex. they get confused with their orders getting skipped).

with this mod i can send alerts to every player in the game which is the best way imo to inform players about the mods. if players choose to ignore those alerts that's their own choice, but at least the game creator has tried to give let them know there are manuals to learn them when the Essentials mod is included.

Very true!

None of that takes away from the utility of this document, which is wonderful.

I'm curious if there's anyone else doing work on this? For example, after a long hiatus I started a game using a mod I hadn't used in a while (Connected Commanders) and I was quite surprised to see it worked differently than before. (Notably, Recon cards can no longer be used to make new Commanders!)

Is this kind of thing documented anywhere, or is the Google doc here the most up to date resource?

this document is as far as I know the only one that has this kind of information about mods. You can always read the mod description to see if it has been changed.

but on the topic on connected commanders, I've been in close contact with the mod creator (and all other active mod creators). i asked him if i could write a little update to allow for autodeployment of the commanders when no commanders have been placed manually (gets rid of T1 eliminations because they don't have deployed commanders), but he replied he had plans on remaking it, there were some things he would liked to change and said that the update wouldn't be necessary at least.

this is just what I heard so don't expect an update or a new mod very soon. as far as I know this is something he wants to do in the future

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i do have an update coming soon again, with some great news :)
including new mods, new manuals and progress on the Essentials mod

Edited 2/10/2022 00:58:09

Cool stuff!

Tell the creator that the option to create new Commanders was an interesting one. It would be nice to have that in play - an interesting dynamic.

update 1.4

I have been working on the Essentials mod (and some other mods xD) and I am now at the point where I need to decide what I want to add more before I make this mod public. Note that this does not mean that development on this mod will be stopped when the mod becomes public, the mod will need to get updated constantly.

I am considering to add some small features to the mod. Some ideas are:

• Adding a window to allow clean up your order list. Things like removing only a certain type of order (only deployments or only attacks/transfers), clicking a territory / bonus to remove any order related with those territories, etc
  
• Adding a window to allow players to calculate the distance between 2 territories and showing (at least) one path to get there
  

If you have an idea / small improvement on this please reply to this post

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Changelog

• Added Press This Button by JK_3
  
• Added Local Deployment Helper by Just_A_Dutchman_ and TBest
  
• Added Buy Neutral manual
  
• Added King Of The Hills manual
  
• Added Press This Button manual
  
• Added an option to read the manuals in the mod configuration of Essentials
  
• Noted a bug with Custom Card Package (more about this later)
  
• Noted a bug with Better Don't Lost A Territory (more about this later)
  

there are now manuals for:

• Buy Neutral
  
• Gift Gold
  
• Advanced Diplo Mod V4
  
• Limited Multiattacks
  
• AI's don't play cards
  
• Special units are medics
  
• Advanced Diplo Mod V4
  
• Hybrid Distribution
  
• Hybrid Distribution 2
  
• Press This Button
  

The following manuals are in the Essentials mod:

• Gift Gold
  
• Advanced Diplo Mod V4
  
• Limited Multiattacks
  
• AI's don't play cards
  
• Special units are medics
  
• Advanced Diplo Mod V4
  
• Hybrid Distribution
  
• Hybrid Distribution 2
  

New bugs:

• Custom Card Package : State : Bug reported
  When a nuke is played the first attack / transfer gets skipped and added back when all the nukes have been played. This results in the fact that the player who has first move will have 2 attacks / transfers before any other attacks / transfers have been played.
  
• Better Don't Lose A Territory : State : Bugfix appliable
  Currently this mod does not recognise when an order is skipped. This can result in a elimination when you don't see any attack (found this out the hard way lmao)
  

The following mods are in queue to write a manual about:

• Local Deployment Helper
  
• Custom Card Package
  These are the mods I play the most with. If you think I should prioritize another mod please inform me
  
• Promoted mods
  
• Standard mods
  
• Experimental mods
  

oh wow, i never would have expected you to make a manual for my Button mod 😅

does the Button mod even work with the latest update?

it crashes on website fsr @JK_3

btw, it was like 10 minutes to write that manual :)

a quick update

I haven't added anything more to the Essentials mod or made new manuals. I had a small conversation with Fizzer about making the mod public where he noted the wiki is also there for those who are looking for more information. So the last few days I've spended my time in updating and creating the old or missing pages.

Now that the wiki is up to date with at least the manuals document, I will once again focus myself more on creating manuals and improving the Essentials mod.

Dutchman is doing God's work

Time has passed and a lot has happened. Here's a quick summary:

• The Decoy Card mod is now public (made by Just_A_Dutchman_)
  
• The Highest Income Disadvantage mod is now public (made by Just_A_Dutchman_)
  
• Both mods already have a manual in the document
  
• Added a manual for the Local Deployment Helper mod
  
• The wiki and Essentials mod will follow soon with their updates
  

Besides this, the Local Deployment Helper mod has got some updates the last few weeks. It can now be used in every game, with every setting and mod. The only mods that (sometimes) cannot be used in combination with the Local Deployment Helper mod are BonusValue QuickOverrider and Randomized Bonuses, but this can be avoided by creating templates with the mods one by one

This is very very cool! Thank you for doing this. Incredible, really.

A question:

Do you have much experience with the Connected Commanders mod?

I used to use it a lot (it makes for interesting games). However, now I'm having trouble setting up a game with it that works at all (players don't start with any commanders, so they all die at the end of the first turn), and the option to make new Commanders with cards has been removed.

If anyone knows anything about this, please post here or send me a Mail message.

I used to use it a lot (it makes for interesting games). However, now I'm having trouble setting up a game with it that works at all (players don't start with any commanders, so they all die at the end of the first turn), and the option to make new Commanders with cards has been removed.

I just tested it, and it appears that even if commanders are enabled in the game settings, they appear to be deleted by the mod.

EDIT:
It turns out you have to deploy your own commanders in turn 1. You can do this via the mod menu (accessible via the Game menu)

Edited 3/12/2022 22:17:36

Ah interesting! We will attempt this.

It works fine in a Random Distribution game I just set up, but not in a Custom Scenario.

We will attempt it through the Mod menu - being able to place them yourself is actually pretty cool! I like that.

Apparently there is a popup that lets players know about it, but that popup does not work unless the game uses a manual distribution

Fascinating!

Weird that it works automatically with Random Distribution, then. Thank you very much! We'll see if it works.

connected commanders is indeed a lot of fun, but is lacking some utilities imo. I've asked the mod author if he would add a automatic commander distribution for those players who don't place them manual if I wrote one, but he answered he didn't wanted it since he had plans to recreate the mod. I'll try to get in contact with him again, seeing how most functions work absolutely fine and the mod is just needs some polishing.

Edit: the notification system can use an upgrade, but how I imagine the notification system to be is not something that has been made yet. but it is always great to improve our mods with newer methods

Edited 3/13/2022 00:01:49

with the King of the hill mod can we get an update to place them in custom distribution. either u are able to hand place or they randomly distribute amongst the players