Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[namad]

Really love starting with a sawmill, skips the first few boring turns of the game, great move.
Now that hard extreme and impossible ai get bonus swordsmen though, and can go aggro faster, I wonder, should their %bonuses across the board be lowered slightly? is anyone out there really saying extreme/impossible games are too easy to win?

Also @catwalk, I think one thing seravy is trying to keep in the spirit of his changes in caster of magic, is that he's intentionally altering the game a lot, he wants it to be a different game, because people can still go play the final patch he put out for vanilla master of magic, with no changes and just bugfixes, if people prefer that game, it still exists.

[GermanJoey]

I would really like to see catwalk play a game where he doesn't start any wars until 1410 (although he's free to defend himself if attacked). Which means he can't attack enemy cities or enemy troops. I'm aware this isn't realistic on impossible, but I want to see his input on mid-late game.

hey, does anyone demand that you play a game where you're not allowed to build a Halberdier?

[Catwalk]

is anyone out there really saying extreme/impossible games are too easy to win?

Yes

Also @catwalk, I think one thing seravy is trying to keep in the spirit of his changes in caster of magic, is that he's intentionally altering the game a lot, he wants it to be a different game, because people can still go play the final patch he put out for vanilla master of magic, with no changes and just bugfixes, if people prefer that game, it still exists.

I'm not sure what your point is? Have I said anywhere that I feel the original MoM is anywhere near perfect? It has tons of charm and a good concept, and awful balance and execution. I'm not satisfied with CoM (yet), but it's certainily heaps better than original MoM in spite of design flaws. And many of the design flaws are actually relics from original MoM.

[Nelphine]

Hehe, germanjoey, I've tried a few times. Replacing beastmen (halberdiers) with halfling swordsmen/slingers gave reasonable results, although, the myrran AI was far too strong, and I was slowed too Mich. I should try again - but it was a very similar style of play to my halberdiers. So might not count.

I've tried to replicate sprites on myrror - much much less effective than catwalk.

I've tried to do heavy sorcery, and heavy retort + sorcery - I made that work once, but only because I found sky drake early in a lair.

I've tried to do heavy nature and heavy chaos, as well as retort heavy with both - I've never had any success with those two realms. (The most spectacular loss being my 'colossus gets eaten alive by doom drakes' fiasco).

I've had success with heavy death a few times - although I've never tried werewolves, and I've always wanted to.

I've never tried multi realm games. I just can't see how extra spells can possibly make up for the loss of retorts.

[Drax]

I think there might be a bug with city Plague event. I've had plague in one city for like 50 turns at least. It was my capital fully built and at about 20 population then went down to 4 population and has been producing 400+ people/turn for like 20 turns and staying at size 5-6. True I've unlocked bad luck achievements in every possible game, but still rather suspicious.

[Seravy]

I think there might be a bug with city Plague event. I've had plague in one city for like 50 turns at least. It was my capital fully built and at about 20 population then went down to 4 population and has been producing 400+ people/turn for like 20 turns and staying at size 5-6. True I've unlocked bad luck achievements in every possible game, but still rather suspicious.

Plague kills 1 population per turn at a chance of 10% per population. At 4 population that's 40% to kill 1000 people, which perfectly balances out 400 growth into zero.

[Nelphine]

We've been discussing a lot about retorts vs books. What about the idea that books are decent where they are, military retorts are ok, but magical retorts are too strong? Basically, warlord gives +1 ish to normal troops and costs 2 picks. Most spell retorts give 33% more spells of some kind (either more spells flat out, or faster spells, or more overland spells). While the individual units aren't better, for your overall strength 33% is waay more than +1 to a bunch of stats.

What if most spell retorts were only around the 10% mark?

In other words, its a numbers problem, not an actual mechanic problem (which also explains why spell retorts lead to super early rushes, and shy I think things like archmage and soellweaver are the scariest AI retorts, far more than things like guardian and warlord.)

[Seravy]

What if most spell retorts were only around the 10% mark?

No one would ever use them.
There is a massive difference between magic and military : Military makes up 90%+ of your economic output (all your cities, their gold and production), while magic is the remaining 10% (only your casting skill and nothing else) for the majority of the game, the early turns being the only exception. City economy grows exponentially as long as land allows expansion. Casting skill grows as the square root or your power - much slower. Your endgame gold/power/production is 100-1000 times your starting, but your casting power is only 10-20 times as much.
So these huge +30% modifiers are only strong in the early game when city production hasn't grown yet.

Also, those +1s are actually often worth 30% by themselves. A unit that's elite instead of veteran has +1 health - on a halberdier that's a 50% bonus. Alchemy grants +1 hit - that's exactly 33% damage output. Tactician...is immeasurable, as shields have a nonlinear benefit - 1 more shields can more than halve damage taken if it was already very low.

[Nelphine]

Right but end game, very rares can beat hordes of city built troops, no matter how good those troops are. Cities are distinctly secondary. (Except for life who uses super buffed city troops instead). Specifically, at every stage of the game its quantity (cities) vs quality (spells) with the exception of early massive summons. Late game, an AI with archmage terrifies me because he'll have more very rares. An AI with warlord tacticuan and guardian doesn't even phase me. I don't care if casting skill is the slowest growing thing in the game, its still the most powerful by s significant margin - and its what allows early summon tactics. Starting with 27 casting skill instead of 6 is HUGE. Being end game with 300 instead of 200 is HUGE.

[Drax]

Starting with 27 casting skill instead of 6 is HUGE. Being end game with 300 instead of 200 is HUGE.

Archmage does not work like that really and the effect is actually bigger late game. It's compounding.

I've also been thinking about balancing magic a bit from a different standpoint.
I think the single most important issue is the scaling of casting skill.
Basically I see the problem as follows:
1) it is increasing very quickly at the beginning. Raising casting skill up yo say 50-60 is rather easy.
2) it has most impact in the beginning. At 50-60 you can already cast every combat spell and summon quite a few buggers.
3) Now on higher difficulties this allows AI to do a lot of summon spamming way too early. I.e. they can be very hard opponents nearly from the start and then when you catch up they flatten up.

So my thinking is that a tweak in the casting skill formula might help making the game a bit more linear. For example if the formula is changed so the base you need to fill is not your current skill but a constant is added to it, say 20 then initial increase will be a lot slower.
For example if you have skill 12 you would not spend 12SP, but rather 12+base_constant(20) then for each further point the same.
SP(n+1)=SP(n)+n+base_const(20?);

base value of 20 is just a suggestion. For late game it would not really matter. The whole point is to diminish the effect of very early sharp skill increase that allows AI and Player to use really nasty stuff without actually paying properly for it. The increase of skill from 20 to 60 is what matters most really and that's way too easy to do IMO.
I'm not exactly sure what the AI difficulty bonuses are but I've found it rather more interesting when they do have casting skill cap.

If you agree that it makes sense this should be a simple change.