The shapeshifting thing is possible-ish, look at doppelgangers. A unit can have an ability to disguise itself as another specific unit when viewed by another player on the world map. If right-clicked, it should then show the stats of the unit that it is disguised as. In combat, it will reveal its true nature. This, I think, is basically what you're looking for. The only possible issue is that if a unit is disguised as something with stealth or movement-related abilities (eg. Snow Move or Forest Stealth), it will not actually have said abilities unless its 'real' form also possesses them (I think). This can 'give the game away' in certain situations.

Originally posted by Orpheus:

The shapeshifting thing is possible-ish, look at doppelgangers. A unit can have an ability to disguise itself as another specific unit when viewed by another player on the world map. If right-clicked, it should then show the stats of the unit that it is disguised as. In combat, it will reveal its true nature. This, I think, is basically what you're looking for. The only possible issue is that if a unit is disguised as something with stealth or movement-related abilities (eg. Snow Move or Forest Stealth), it will not actually have said abilities unless its 'real' form also possesses them (I think). This can 'give the game away' in certain situations.

I managed to figure out a workaround for the shapeshifting issue.

I made it so that unit A has a prebattle weapon that makes it kill itself instantly, with the mutate effect. It then becomes unit B. Unit B has landshape -1, so when the battle ends, it goes back to being unit A

The only problem with this is that when unit B transforms back into unit A, it's not following the commander anymore, which can get pretty annoying, since you have to manually transfer it to your commander after every battle.

Originally posted by nemid:

Is there any way at all to do this? the promotion command seems to always try to do the first promotion first, then the second, then the third...

And by randomized promotion, I mean both:

A)Having unit A with an equal chance to promote into either unit B or unit C

B)Having either unit A promote into unit B or unit C promote into unit D (with equal chances) from the same ritual.

Is there any way to do either of these?

EDIT: While I'm at it, might as well ask this other question too.

Can you make a shapeshifting unit A that, at the start of battle, immediately turns into unit B, and when the battle ends, becomes unit A again?

For instance A. I use duplicate names see below example pulled from my populum mod.

newritual "Train Guard"
level 3
soundfx 57
free
apcost 0
cost 0 25
cost 1 1
promotion 1
addstring "Levy"
addstring "Trained Guard"

I have multiple units named "Trained Guard" that levys may be turned into.

For B. if I understand right it is an extension of A but use more paired strings and duplicate names.

For the added question I think you have the best solution but your units are not created right. Avoid landshape and watershape I think they don't work right. Use my ice queen monster as an example paired with your battlestart dmg.


newmonster "Ice Queen"
spr1 "civ/icequeen01.tga"
spr2 "civ/icequeen02.tga"
copystats "Frost Hag"
clearmove
clearweapons
clearspec
rank -1
hp 125
armor 0
mr 10
mor 7
str 3
spellweapon 27 3
meleeweapon 0 5
snow
coldres 100
human
allitemslots
flying
iceprot 3
randomrare 20
randomitem 100
firstshape 1
shrinkhp 120
changetemp -30

newmonster "Ice Queen Dragon Form"
spr1 "civ/bdragon01.tga"
spr2 "civ/bdragon02.tga"
rank 1
rearpos
hp 120
armor 3
mr 9
mor 7
str 9
meleeweapon 25 11
meleeweapon 20 12
meleeweapon 5 485
rangedweaponbonus 12 276
flying
huge
coldres 100
acutesenses
fear
nametype 15
randommisc 50
unaging
fastheal
secondshape 1
iceprot 3
growhp 125
changetemp -40
trample