You could create a 'generic' commander that starts with several different rituals. Each of these rituals would 'evolve' the unit into a different type and remove all the starting rituals. Rituals can be set up so that they are ALWAYS given to any commander able to use that ritual set. So you'd create a new set of rituals that only consists of these selection spells, all of which are given at game start. The starting commander would be weak and useless and the selection rituals are free to cast and cost no AP, so there is no incentive to NOT cast one immediately (meaning that the AI will use them correctly). After casting any selection spell, the commander transforms into a more specialised and more powerful form which no longer has access to selection spells but may have its own rituals instead.

Yeah, for sure that's possible, but that puts the selection in the player's hands. I'm learning that when it comes to CoE modding one is often not spoiled for choice about such things :).

Although I'm actually having trouble getting `levelupmon` to work even. You shouldn't need a `mastery` on the monster, right? Because there are obviously more than one path. Marlin's decom shows Warlock's Apprentice without a mastery, and just a `levelupmon` and an `addstring`... plus maybe the power assignment itself. Not sure what else could be missing :/.

You could try this way: create a monster, let's call it "wizard" with mastery of rituals of one type (power 0 1 for example), then create a different monster with the same name "wizard" but different set of rituals (power -1 1) and other stats as you wish. Repeat as many times as necessary, then add "wizard" as setmaincom / addstartcom / addcomrec for the class where necessary, that way each time you get one of these commanders it should be randomly picked from the list of monsters that share the name. You'll also need to create the newritpow and rituals for each ritual school, plus upgraded versions of each “wizard” in the long run for higher mastery levels. Not an ideal solution, but it should probably work, I've tried something similar in a mod once, and I think it was working, although I haven't tested it extensively and not as the main commander for the class, it was mostly for summoning different versions of the same commander with different spells.

I wouldn't have thought that would work :/. I'll have to give it a try. I still need to figure out why `levelupmon` isn't working though :/

Give a one time use commander that gives the player starting resources. Also give an extra warlock's apprentice since you won't have a normal Warlock to start.

See below:

icon ""
description "Choose Warlock start."

newmonster "Warlock Treasury"
rank -1
rearpos
hp 20
armor 3
mr 10
mor 99
str 1
stationary
fireres 25
coldres 99
poisonres 100
sleepres
charmres
noheal
diseaseres
bluntres
slashres
pierceres
shockres 50
inanimate
allitemslots
stonebeing
nozoc
neverturn
immobile
unimportant
unaging
affres 100
neverturn 1
nocombat
size2x2
nametype 56

newritpow
newritual "Fire Gems"
descr "Gives fifty gems of indicated type."
level 1
free
cost 7 50 #Gives 50 gems
castertarg #selects the caster
killtarg 9999 #destroys the caster

newritual "Water Gems"
descr "Gives fifty gems of indicated type."
level 1
free
cost 8 50 #Gives 50 gems
castertarg #selects the caster
killtarg 9999 #destroys the caster

newritual "Air Gems"
descr "Gives fifty gems of indicated type."
level 1
free
cost 9 50 #Gives 50 gems
castertarg #selects the caster
killtarg 9999 #destroys the caster

newritual "Earth Gems"
descr "Gives fifty gems of indicated type."
level 1
free
cost 10 50 #Gives 50 gems
castertarg #selects the caster
killtarg 9999 #destroys the caster

selectmonster "Warlock Treasury"
power 0 1

selectclass "Warlock"
setmaincom "Warlock's Apprentice"
addstartcom "Warlock Treasury"

Also interesting, but I was interested in trying to get `levelupmon` to work.

```
newritual "Studied the Esoterics"
level 1
apcost -1
levelreq 1
free
levelupmon 2
addstring "Esoteric Prior"
```

Originally posted by shin.satsuma:

Also interesting, but I was interested in trying to get `levelupmon` to work.

```
newritual "Studied the Esoterics"
level 1
apcost -1
levelreq 1
free
levelupmon 2
addstring "Esoteric Prior"
```

That looks fine.

I think you do need some sort of mastery unless you use transformtarg or promotion. Warlocks have a special type of mastery called fxID812. Post full working mod code would be helpful.

Sure, what's the normal method for sharing files here? It's far, far from done, just a bunch of experiments, mostly.