game discussion!

[Nelphine]

Definite bug on the roads, but I wasn't there when they were built so I have no idea what the circumstances were. Given this is impossible, and already later than 1412, it would be very difficult to pinpoint when it happened.

The combat was near a hero of mine with scouting 2. (One tile away) the lair had war bears. After the combat, the AI still had 9 in the stack where the tile was, and the spirit was 1 tile up right of it. It didn't move there (unless it wasn't shown to me). Unfortunately I didn't save the turn, and killed the spirit. But I have no idea. I figure for now I'm just going to assume I missed something like I blinked when the spirit moved into sight.

I've also been having strange movement from creatures near towers. Like I'll attack something guarding a tower, and life steal create a unit up left of the tower. Then the next turn the created unit can move through the hills to the left of the tower for only 1 movement cost. Almost like they think they were moving through the desert to the left of the tower on the other plane. Unfortunately I often lose these units to another combat before I think to reload and see if I can replicate it. Its been happening semi regularly though, maybe 6 or 7 times during this whole game. (I was just very intent on killing horus, whom I think I finally have under control. I've gotta say aether binding plus 3 overland dispelling waves in one turn DESTROYS my buffed kill stacks. So I wasn't bug checking as much as I should have been I'm sorry.)

[Nelphine]

My GUESS behind the road building is that the engineer is going from one city to the next. Then, the same wizard builds a roadblock immediately next to the engineer with a stack of 9 (and any other squares have enemy units in them), and at the same time a boat is next to the engineer, and if the engineer gets on the boat, it will be able to get off the boat the next turn and be closer to its target city.

I'm guessing this because one instance the road is across a corner connecting s peninsula to a mainland, and when I got there it was fairly crowded with Horus' units, and its the home continent of lo pan. The second instance is actually at the end of a peninsula (imagine the peninsula is 3 tall by 2 wide. City in the bottom left, road bottom right, road immediately right of that in the water, road in the middle right, road in the top left, then the road extends out into the mainland from there.)

If the engineer had started in the city, and both squares above it were blocked, it first goes to the bottom right. (Or if the city was owned by enemy but the engineer was building from that city elsewhere it would start in the bottom right. Strange to start from an enemy city but I saw that multiple tines in the impossible game I lost last.) Then, if the so has a boat to the right, since it can't move north it moves onto the ship - still building - then the blocking units are fine, so it moves off the ship back onto land.)

But the second instance I'm not sure about. Getting in the boat in the scenario I descibed doesn't move the engineer closer, it just allows the engineer to move. Not like the cut across corner scenario (I didn't fully describe that but I can if you want.)

Again, all conjecture. I wasn't there at the time.

[Seravy]

(unless it wasn't shown to me)

That would be weird but it's the only thing I can think of. Spirits do tend to move alone towards whichever node is closest to meld.

and at the same time a boat is next to the engineer, and if the engineer gets on the boat, it will be able to get off the boat the next turn and be closer to its target city.

Unless there is something seriously wrong that I haven't noticed, this can't happen. Path finding never considers paths that go through ships, unless the destination itself is a sea tile. You can try that yourself, if you put a ship between two continents with only one tile of water between them, and try to send a unit from one continent to another, it'll not move.

Do the roads go through any tower directly before entering sea? Maybe the engineer got spirited away to the other plane. Another interesting question, how did the engineers end up flying/waterwalking. I don't think the AI will target such weak units with those spells...which leaves Doom Mastery granting flight. Does the person who built the roads have that in play? If not, then it has to be a coincidence of a ship being there when the bug caused the engieers to go that way.

[Nelphine]

I can't even be sure they had ships there at the time (although it's not their home continent, so I assume ships were in play.) Actually.. since it's Lo Pans home continent he COULD have been the one to trigger this. I don't believe that's the case as he seems to have been a Barbarian start race, whereas Horus appears to have been Orcs (with a large amount of Lizardman cities - of course I didn't keep track of what his original capital was, and I'm inquisitor so it's not around any more).

But, no one has ever cast Doom Mastery, so that was not in play. I haven't seen many people with Flight cast on anything, and Horus has no Nature books so waterwalking wouldn't have been a possibility.

On another strange note, the 'wrong movement cost' for certain tiles doesn't seem to have to do with towers any more. I can reliably have my Beastmen Priests, every time they get built, go through one particular forest as if it was a plain (but not in general). They've also gone through a Volcano (from Raise Volcano) as if it were a plain, but not the mountain next to it. It's.. strange.

[Nelphine]

Curious question; what does a neutral outpost do? (I defeated a wizard who had an outpost, so it became neutral.)

[Nelphine]

Another oddity. I've had 7 different pieces of armour with 5 abilities on them. Is there really that many? I THINK I'm actually getting duplicates, but.. I didn't think there were that few items that I would need to get that many duplicates??

[Nelphine]

ohhhh another awesome thing.

If you kill a unit, and it becomes an undead version of that unit for you, it will then get warlord/crusade applied. If you were to cast crusade 20 turns later, it still gets applied. Hello, super undead!

[Nelphine]

Finished the game. Won in ... 1416? or 1417. (Did use save load cheat on the fourth wizard for one combat, although I don't think that actually did anything as the stack I would have 'lost' didn't do anything else the rest of the game. Was just trying to finish.)

I was sad - I actually had a troll city (despite being Beastman Inquisitor) - but the units available just weren't worth using on impossible.

Learned alchemy is ridiculous in the end game. I can afford to do random attacks on small stacks everywhere instead of waiting for them to clump up so as to be more efficient mana wise. (Things like the AI has 1 trireme or Galley, and I have one Veteran Draconian Halberdier flying or Naga swimming by - I could afford to go in and just kill the trireme without having to worry about the mana cost.)

Also, Crusade basically turned the game from a contest where the last wizard and I traded things, to 'I win in 2 seconds flat'. (I 'lost' the unit the turn before Crusade finished, and after that, I just destroyed everything. The Champion rank is ridiculous.)


I also believe the AI needs to put more emphasis on War Colleges before building mass units at a given city. (Building minimal amounts to defend the city is far more important, but once they're covering the map with units, they should only be doing so if the city has a War College (or Barracks if the race can't get War College).)
Its a huge waste of their bonus resources to not have war colleges everywhere, early.


Also, once there are some wars going, the AI seems to have a very hard to time settling things.

For instance, Horus was at war with Lo Pan.. forever. Possibly literally considering Lo Pan was first banished in.. 1405. I came in, destroyed all of Horus' cities on Lo Pans continent (over the course of.. oh.. 4 or 5 years), and even 3 years after I finished, Lo Pan still only had one city on the continent. I think I saw 4 or 5 outposts created (by both Lo Pan and Horus), but none of them survived to Hamlets. Even though I wasn't around, the two of them had so many random troops everywhere that neither of them could effectively expand on the continent.

I'm assuming it's not possible, but is there any way to find space to add in an overland unit order that says 'if there is a settler by itself within 2 squares, go stack with it' - even though the next turn the settler will move away without regard to its escorts, with the massive number of random stacks AI get later on all over several continents, this would at least protect the settler for most of its existence. PROBABLY after step 15? But maybe after 12?

Of course I could be wrong as to what was causing the AI to not settle. They did settle other continents in those years (at least 6 - 8 cities between the 2 AI, that actually lasted). In which case ignore this.

[Seravy]

Another oddity.  I've had 7 different pieces of armour with 5 abilities on them. Is there really that many? I THINK I'm actually getting duplicates, but.. I didn't think there were that few items that I would need to get that many duplicates??

Armor gets +1 or +2 defense bonus for its item type. If it doesn't have defense among it's 4 other abilities, then that becomes the 5th ability.
Maybe you are playing with "more random items" enabled?

[Nelphine]

Oh nope, these were all +1 or 2 defense. Totally explains it. My bad for not thinking of that.