Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[GermanJoey]

Update!

Having some second thoughts about allowing Sage Master with 1 realm, as 1 realm games always come with a huge advantage in research : you get 9 starting commons plus the book research bonus, so it takes less time to reach rares. Still I think it will increase variety in games to have better accessibility to early research strategies.

Thanks! I will give this new SM a try. If it is too strong like this, you could always knock the static +9 bonus down a few points or something. (and just a few points would make a noticeable difference, because then the player has to spend a few more points of precious early power to get those even numbers)

[GermanJoey]

I'm playing an extreme game with 3 life books, and every retort that helps heroes (artificer rune master warlord sage master tactician myrran), and despite building a strong artifact by 1407 I have yet to bother using heroes in combat. My standard troops are better with life enchants - they can cover more area and don't need to use in combat mana to win. Whereas heroes need healing and you always want to choose good targets etc.

But if you're playing life+warlord, who cares if you lose your heroes? Heroism costs 75 mana and it'll give you a lvl 4 hero, who'll have like 50 casting skill by themselves. If they die, you can either resurrect them (if they were actually good) or just replace them, no big deal. IMHO famous would do you a lot better than artificer, both for getting you more heroes (and earlier, especially with Just Cause) but also for getting you offers to buy top-tier artifacts later in the game.

All life books other than Warlord+Tactician+Famous, then either Myrran (dwarves) + Inquisitor, or Astrologer+Inquisitor if you're feeling plucky, or probably just Inquistor + 2 more life books - that'd be the best hero-centric strat IMHO. Tactician + Holy armor + Endurance gives you +5 armor together, another +1 from Heroism+Warlord, plus another one if you're defending in a Heavenly Light city... your heroes should be pretty tough to kill!

[Nelphine]

Actually I have neither raise dead or resurrection.

But my overall point is that heroes, even decked out, are best used as casting skill dummies at your fortress. You can make +20 casting skill items really cheaply (like, 225 casting cost?); with 6 heroes and 3 items each that's 60 extra casting skill.

And since your troops are just as effective in combat, there's no point to making Uber death heroes. Your troops already uber death since I have 3 life books and warlord and tactician. herodes are way to expensive to be worth bothering with. (I never have to defend my cities. My army strength is too high for anyone to declare war on me for military reasons and until enemy ai get stacks of 9 very Rares they dont even consider attacking my cities a good investment as a random thing for other personalities. Obviously super early game could be different.. but warlord + life is the best early game anyway.)

Tldr: the best hero strategy is also the best 'make awesome troops' strategy and the hero part of it gets ignored.

[Nelphine]

Amusing observation. When someone reaches max power on the history graph (or on the 3 strength graphs of army, power production and spellpower), instead of that person rising any higher (they just stay at the max), everyone else starts decreasing in comparison instead. However, the max for the given turn is set to equal the highest player, but the previous turns maxes are not retroactively changed, so it appears that the top person is flatlining, and everyone else is getting weaker.

As an example, on turn 1410 the history scores* might be 850, 900, 400; and the max is 1000, so it looks like player 1 has 85%, player 2 has 90% and player 3 has 40%. However on turn 1415, lets say the scores are now 1200, 1500, and 600. The max (for that turn, not the whole graph) will change to be 1500; which means player one appears to be 80%, player 2 100%, and player 3 40%.

So the graph will actually look like player 1 has weakened in those 5 years, even though he is actually 33% stronger; and player 3 appears the same as he was, even though he is 50% stronger. And player 2 looks like he capped, despite his 66% increase.

Nothing really wrong with this for me, but possibly very confusing for some people? (I would only expect the historical graph to be confusing, as the 3 strength graphs are snapshots of one turn only, so the fact the max is changing isn't particularly obvious.)


*Please note, I have absolutely no idea what the numbers actually are. My example is just to describe what is happening.

[Seravy]

Amusing observation.  When someone reaches max power on the history graph (or on the 3 strength graphs of army, power production and spellpower), instead of that person rising any higher (they just stay at the max), everyone else starts decreasing in comparison instead.  However, the max for the given turn is set to equal the highest player, but the previous turns maxes are not retroactively changed, so it appears that the top person is flatlining, and everyone else is getting weaker.

As an example, on turn 1410 the history scores* might be 850, 900, 400; and the max is 1000, so it looks like player 1 has 85%, player 2 has 90% and player 3 has 40%.  However on turn 1415, lets say the scores are now 1200, 1500, and 600.  The max (for that turn, not the whole graph) will change to be 1500; which means player one appears to be 80%, player 2 100%, and player 3 40%.  

So the graph will actually look like player 1 has weakened in those 5 years, even though he is actually 33% stronger; and player 3 appears the same as he was, even though he is 50% stronger.  And player 2 looks like he capped, despite his  66% increase.

Nothing really wrong with this for me, but possibly very confusing for some people? (I would only expect the historical graph to be confusing, as the 3 strength graphs are snapshots of one turn only, so the fact the max is changing isn't particularly obvious.)


*Please note, I have absolutely no idea what the numbers actually are. My example is just to describe what is happening.

Works exactly like you described. I tried to make it "zoom out" the graph but failed. The data is stored in a byte value so there is no room to store a detailed value of a higher range.
The only other possibility would be to rescale the entire stored data based on the top in the entire visible range, but constant rescaling every turn (while the top is growing in power) would most likely mess up the data a lot by rounding errors. Having actually tried this one tho, it might be possible, I just think it would be awfully inaccurate so I don't feel like investing time into trying.
If data was stored as word, it could be done but then the graph would be only half as long (10 years instead of 20, or a new entry every second month only). Either way it takes a LOT of time to change this.

[Nelphine]

nope, if that's something you've investigated, I'm perfectly happy with it.

[Nelphine]

When determining the minimum number of farmers a city needs, food bonus from the Foresters guild is not included.

[Seravy]

When determining the minimum number of farmers a city needs, food bonus from the Foresters guild is not included.

Edit : Tested and this isn't true. Building the Forester's Guild allowed me to turn an extra worker into a farmer.

Maybe it happens in specific situations?

...I figured it out. It still considers the building as 2 food because I raised that to 3 in the mod but at that time I wasn't aware of where the minimal farmers procedure was. I need to change that 2 to 3.

[Seravy]

Fixed version is uploaded.

[Nelphine]

Hmm. I was doing it when my city only had a population of one. Once built it wouldn't let me switch him to a worker. If i build a granary I can switch him (Whether before or after the foresters guild.)

(I have not uploaded the new version yet to see if that fixes it. I'm mentioning this only because it doesn't seem the number should make a difference. )