DavidW

Sword Coast Stratagems is a collection of interconnected mini-mods for Baldur's Gate (on the BGT/BGTUTU/BGEE versions) and Baldur's Gate II. It is primarily a tactical and AI-enhancement mod: the idea is to make the game's combat more interesting, tactically challenging, and realistic by more effective use of, and choices of, creatures' abilities. It also contains a few rule tweaks and ease-of-use features. Version 33 is largely a bug-fixing release: it features fixes to 40-odd bugs and compatibility issues, including serious problems with the NPC customization component, the random scrolls component, and Death Spell (which was turning neutrals hostile). It also adds a small new cosmetic component (improved Tales of the Sword Coast textscreens), allows IWD spells to be tied to hotkeys, tweaks the shapeshifter tokens, and makes some slight changes to mage and priest AI. Grab it direct here. You can also visit the extensive project pages, readme, or SCS forum for more information. Full changelog in the next post. EDIT: Updated to 33.7. Changelog: Non-English-language installs that lack a string will again use the English version instead of failing to install. (Bug introduced by 33.5's changes.) Cure Moderate Wounds no longer gets mangled on a Spell Revisions / IWD Divine Spells install. EDIT: Updated to 33.6. Changelog: Fixed an edge-case function-library bug that was blocking some install configurations. EDIT: Updated to 33.5. Changelog: Updated to WEIDU 247; some tweaks to resolve compatibility problems. Archers now get their proper script The Cult Wizard in Ulgoth's Beard is now a more reasonable level. Conjurers no longer use divination spells. Under the hood: many updates to SFO function library. EDIT: Updated to 33.4. Changelog: Updated Russian translation (thanks to Arkie) Guarded against the variable that tracks Time Stop not resetting to zero when the spell ends (I don't have a theoretical explanation for how this happens but there's some evidence that it does, and that it causes sporadic bugs, including Sendai's statues not activating). Aec'letec's Death Gaze now works properly. Witness the power of this fully armed and operational nabassu. Fiends in a few install configurations (notably BGTUTU/BGEE installs) weren't getting Teleport without Error. Mages should no longer use Spell Sequencers when out of range (thus wasting the spell) Player-summoned fiends should now attack properly On non-EE installs, Iron Skins was being treated as a Spell Protection when precast by enemies The BG2 Improved Random Encounters now check Player 1's XP, not Player 1's level, when deciding what to spawn. (The new XP totals correspond to a fighter's XP at the old level.) Giant Spiders should no longer use their Web Tangle attack more often than once per round Giant Spiders are now properly affected by Fear Necromancers no longer use Blindness (for some inexplicable reason, when I coded spell choices I thought it was Necromancy, not Illusion) EDIT: Updated to 33.3. Changelog: Deprecated the Chinese, Korean and Spanish translations, as they haven't been updated since 2012 or so and the mod has changed radically since then. Language entries now note for which version the translation was most recently updated. SCS's function language no longer chokes on resource names with hyphens in (no base-game files do this, but it was breaking compatibility with some mods) SCS now allows for the edge case where a spell-memorisation file contains a column entirely of zeroes (again, this was blocking compatibility in rare cases) SCS's 'correct antimagic descriptors' function now allows for malformed spells with no name (this was causing crashes when Dark Side of the Sword Coast's spell system was installed) EDIT: Updated to 33.2. Changelog: Corrected a typo which prevented some mage/thieves from getting proper scripting Optimized the troll-regeneration code to increase install speed Foreign language translations of the new strings in the IWD spells components no longer get corrupted (which in some cases was causing crashes) Fixed a stutter bug with 'Improved NPC customisation and management' (previously, if you never turned on the AI for a character they would stop moving every few moments). The stuttering remains if you haven't yet levelled the character, but that's not a problem as you should be levelling them immediately in any case. 'Improved NPC customisation and management' no longer hard-codes the assumptions that only humans can dual-class, that only nonhumans can multi-class, and that only single-class characters can have kits. This should improve compatibility with various other mods. (It remains incompatible with any mod that removes dual-classing from humans, as it doesn't know what to do with existing dual-class characters like Imoen.) The tweaked version of Entropy Shield is now correctly identified by Detectable Spells. The console command to stop enemies targeting the main character with Maze now works (thanks to Polytope for spotting the bug here) EDIT: Updated to 33.1. Changelog: Updated French translation (thanks to Jazira and Gwendolyne) Updated Russian translation (thanks to Arkie) In rare circumstances, liches were summoning Planetars on too-low a difficulty setting Spell hotkeys now work for high-level mage spells Hotkey 'D' is no longer remapped to 'Q' by default

There was a typo in the download link; fixed. Thanks.

That is a very good point. Apologies: I stand corrected.

The normal ones.

SCS won’t affect this either way.

The compiled script doesn’t care what’s in the IDS file. The IDS file just helps translate human-readable text into a compiled script. Edit: my mistake- as Kjeron points out below, dlg files are the exception , since the text there gets compiled at runtime. Apologies.

@jastey (replying very belatedly to this): It does use the EE orientations, but there's nothing about the EE engine that makes it possible. It just has to be entered into the .ids files. SCS does it like this: If it's not working, or if I'm missing something, let me know, but the mod passes install checks on BGII/BGT.

Can reproduce; fixed locally.

2DA files are read by the engine. IDS files are ignored by the engine: they're only used in compiling scripts.

Following this up: In SR, summoned Planetars are assigned their own AI; SCS doesn't change that assignment or alter the AI. So if there's an AI problem here (and actually I couldn't reproduce the issue) it's internal to SR, unless I'm missing something fundamental.

I've failed to reproduce this, and that's far too large a modlist for me to go through. If you (or anyone else) get this bug, can you post (i) setup-stratagems.debug and (ii) mxsplbrd.2da (in your override directory)?

I can reproduce this: it's a clash between the Innate HLAs component and Smarter Mages - they work fine on EE but cause CTD on vanilla. The workaround is not to use both Innate HLAs and Smarter Mages/Priests on v32 and a non-Enhanced install. There will be a fix in the next version. (It's interesting that more people haven't reported this! - says something about how few people in the community still play the original game, I guess.)

That sounds plausible. If you manage to reliably reproduce the bug on a short modlist, give me the details and I'll look further.

I've just tested this on v32.8 and it works fine. At a guess, there is a problem with the updated version of ToBEx you're using - try it again with the version of ToBEx that comes packaged with SCS.

I've now tried to reproduce the Monk CTD problem with Monastic Orders and again can't do it- it's working fine on my install. Either your install has somehow got corrupted, or it is some subtle compatibility problem. All I can suggest is that you reinstall and, if the problem persists, try altering your mod stack to see what makes a difference.

I would either (a) ask on the Beamdog forums, where there are quite a few players who do no-reload SCS runs (they seem to hang out there more than here); or (b) decide that particular battle is badly balanced for your personal play style, and turn the difficulty down for it.

They're mostly harmless. spwi418d and halb11 are completely harmless: it's SCS trying to correct problems that aren't there on SR/IR installs in the first place. scrl07 is SCS trying to apply some patches to Protection from Magic scrolls, and getting confused because IR has altered how those scrolls are coded. The patches aren't applied but the consequences will be minor at worst. The 'include without an argument' is a warning from SFO, the set of function libraries in which SCS is written. It points to a function that isn't actually being run - in this case, the function to make Time Stop detectable. That will cause some minor AI glitches (though not if you're using Ascension 2.0, since it uses the same function and installs it correctly). All this will be fixed in the next release in any case.

I've just released Beta 6, which fixes this issue.

Version Beta 6 of IWDification is now released. This is a very minimal update - it just corrects a nasty logic bug on Enhanced Edition installs that (unless you installed components one at a time) messed up the animations, prevented Giant Insect from installing, and broke SCS compatibility. EDIT: And it adds an updated French translation! This mod is basically CamDawg's baby, not mine (I wrote a lot of the code it's based on for IWD-in-BG2, but he turned that code into something self-contained). So I haven't tried to do a more systematic trawl for bugs.

I feel bad about the Smart_I_C_T function - I should have made clearer that it was beta at best, and that although I'd tested it fairly carefully I couldn't guarantee it was working fully. I still think the idea is good - I'll do a debug pass when I have a chance.

I know of lots of people who have beaten it, so there are viable strategies. The readme gives my own: refuse to play Durlag's game, and slug Potions of Absorption to avoid the effects of the chessboard.

Dark Horizons has installed a broken item, 'cmstq04.itm'.

Yeah, I can do Entropy Shield my side, once I know how SR wants to resolve this. Though SR still might want to check for it and patch it if present, since IWDification might have been installed earlier. I hadn’t considered Icelance.

If you or anyone else still gets these bugs on 32.8 and the latest version of EEEX, let me know.

I can reproduce this. Belated thanks; will fix.