Caster of Magic II Bug Reports!

[WhiteMage]

B16 : The unit was yours when it died. So you lose fame. Not a bug.

B16: Not intuitive rule. I think most players would not like this rule.
 
S39. Slightly change the color of the Gorgons. I killed 2 out of 3, but the last one looked like a tree and I did not see it. It seemed they all died.

[Intaka]

Check the box in Settings that says "remove trees". Each forested square will have only 1 representative tree in it, much easier to see.

[WhiteMage]

Check the box in Settings that says "remove trees". Each forested square will have only 1 representative tree in it, much easier to see.

I had "remove trees" option on. That's how I missed it. When it is not on, it is hard to miss it since the big moving arrows point down on each unit. The problem with that setting is that I can't see the few empty tiles in the dense forest. Maybe the better option is to have the pointing arrows on/off as a separate option from the tree removal. So I can enjoy the benefits of both and not suffer the drawbacks of either. Tree on/off. Moving arrow on/off.

[WhiteMage]

All this discussion reminds me of a video from civilization 4 developer Soren Johnson, which I leave the link here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI)

As for a good AI, the best I've seen so far is K-Mod (Karadoc) also for Civ4. (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/k...rd.407049/)

Thanks. It was a good refresh to watch this video again from 2010. I don’t think mainstream 4X TBS AI development changed much in the past 30 years.

A few highlights from the Civ 4 AI programmer’s presentation that I find relevant:

“Go AI is much worse than chess AI.”
That was true in 2010. It is no longer true.

“Good AI playing to win. Fun AI playing to lose”
Yes, but I find this AI development attitude sad. I get most fun if I win a fair game. I get equal or more fun if I narrowly lose a fair game due to my mistake or a brilliant opponent move that I learned.
A more appropriate way of dividing these computer programs into 2 groups would be Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Stupidity. Some people enjoy playing vs the first, while other people enjoy playing vs the latter. It is much easier to design and code Artificial Stupidity than Artificial Intelligence. To market Artificial Stupidity as Fun AI is distracting to say the least. But sure, it is better for business, I get that.

“Limited options for AI”
Sad and betrays the challenge seeking players.

“Player types: Challenge, Sandbox, Narrative.”
AFAIK, AI is missing from the entire official Civ series for Challenge type players. I keep reading articles and keep trying the new mods, but every time I get disappointed.

“We want the AI to fall for traps to give the players satisfaction.”
This reason is already enough for me to lose interest in playing vs an AI like that.

“Is there a difficulty level in Civ 4 where everything is completely even and the AI is playing the exact same game?
It’s an academic question I am not concerned about.”
To me, this attitude is shocking, but I already knew this. It is not his fault. Company policy to not develop strong and fair AI. And this is not unique to the Civilization series.

“Leave your city empty to lure a large AI attack. When it gets close, defend it and lure the AI to another city with same tactic.”
AI works for a while. Seems dumb AI once a human finds it out. This highlights the AI development approach for 4X TBS in general. Cheat first by knowing the whole map, then make a predictable move that a human can easily exploit once learned it. (COM II has the same thing about nodes, etc.) Expert human play is mostly about finding out then exploiting the hundreds of similar AI triggers and mistakes. So instead of playing the game, we spend time to exploit the known AI behavior.

“Cheating is for challenge, which is one source of fun.”
Sad for me. Cheat and play dumb to entertain players in a deep-thinking strategy game to give them the illusion that they are super smart and beat AI at the emperor and deity levels. Feed people’s egos instead of playing a fair game. Congratulations to all of you emperors and gods for learning about the exploits of a cheating dumb AI. Keep playing single player so your bubble will never burst.

“AI programmer is a core game designer.”
I agree and nice that they had it that way. Game design and AI development go hand in hand. And if the rules change the AI code need to change too later.

“AI is 2% of the code.” Shows how unimportant AI is for them and how little time and money they spent on it. Nevertheless AI code does not always have to be long and is frequently replaced. AI quality or worth is not measured by the number of lines of code.

“Improved AI mod. We paid him for it.”
Nice that they allowed an outsider to develop AI for them. If they make it easy to plug in an external AI code, that is huge.  The burden of development is shared and shows how difficult the strong AI development really is. It also shows that at least they are trying to satisfy the challenge seeker players too. Ideally without need to have the company's work to hook external AI up.

“Too hard. It’s beyond our resources.”
“It would be really nice.”
“It’s the matter of developer resources.”
These confirm what I already stated in my earlier posts.

“We make mistakes all the time. That’s what game development is all about.”
Yep. That’s how it goes. In AI development it is even more true.

Sadly none of the mainstream 4X TBS AI learns. Not that I know of at least. When they asked him a basic question if Civ 4 AI learns, he dodged the question.

Thanks for the info on K-Mod (Karadoc) for Civ4. I think Civ 4 itself is a poor game. Adding a strong AI to it would help a little, but can't fix the underlying fundamental other problems with it. It will need a mod first with different rules, etc. I will check it out when I get some time...

[Seravy]

B14 : confirmed, the city lost an extra 1000 people for an unknown reason.
...the city actually has 3000 population but has 2 minimal and 2 optional farmers. The display should but doesn't trigger a city recalculation to auto-correct the number of total farmers<=population. So this is entirely a display bug. Fixed for the next upload.
B17 : Confirmed, fixed for the next upload.

“AI is 2% of the code.”

At first I was shocked by that considering it's more like 30% in CoM then I realized "yeah of course, graphics are the 95%.", even in CoM graphics and UI take like 50% of the code, only the other half is actual gameplay and only about 60% of that half is the AI. But in a more modern game, graphics engines will be like 95%, not 50.

[Seravy]

Reuploaded.

[Mqz]

Version 1.2 upload 2021-09-05

309)
I had a double "Monsters have been spottede" message one time. First random monster spawn of the game. I had only one city.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pa33jwt5didvfi...o.png?dl=0

Version 1.2 upload 2021-09-07

310)
Typo in AIRes.CAS explanation: ": We don't want Sactify if we're at war with the human player. "

311)
Enemy hero with Logistics die (+1 movement), all enemy units that have already moved now have negativ (-1) movement for this turn.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xuu8j13822mkls...t.png?dl=0

312)
Arch Angels know no life magic spells at all?
Well.. An animated arch angel can only cast my known undead spells at least..

313)
Zombie mastery active, I kill 1 enemy ship. "1 unit transform into zombies". "Zombies drowned!"
Well.. I guess that is a feature. The new auto popup works wonderfully at least.

314)
Plate of Seravy? Would have been a fun little easter egg if this was intentionel. It is worth 150 mana.
Seems like it should give 5 different stats in the "items.ini"
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qkksd0557wtmle...y.png?dl=0

315)
Animated Colossous just raised with animate undead, is animated in a running position, also there is no visible "aura" indicating there is a spell active.
Have also tried an animated storm giant that also stayed in a running position, even arfter using its ranged attack.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s06ci88bzey8oc...s.png?dl=0
Clicking on the colossus seems to give it its aura. Shooting and it stays in running mode. Moving it seems to fix the running position.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kc5e2ejmqgbfud...2.png?dl=0

316)
I agree to a wizard pact. I place my troops next to Ariels city. Two turns later she gives me a warning. Another turn or two she tells me i'm deceitfull and I get this popup. Shouldn't it be her breaking the treaty with me?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1lp27fzpx6jonb...t.png?dl=0

317)
You forgot to fix the food problem in the latest uploaded version
Deleting the units.dat still fixes the problem though.

[Seravy]

311. Movement remaining is not relevant when the player already ended their turn.
312. Undead archangels can only use Death magic
315. Fixed for the next upload
316. When you violate the conditions of the wizard's pact, you count as the person breaking the treaty.

[Mqz]

318)
Item 229 seems to have 5 skills too? (I have only looked at the items above 200 to see if they had more than 5 skills)
A few items have stronger than normal stats
Like 3 movement on item 1(Accessory), 159(mail), 225(Accessory). 4 movement on item 2(Accessory)
And 8 defence on the ring 23(Accessory), 100(plate) and 211(plate), guessing those is intended?

319)
All mercenaries I get offerede seems to have magical weapons without any exception. Turn 90+ All veterans. Even the barbarian swordsmen have magical weapons? MOM wiki says mercenaries cant get magical weapons. Guess this is a new feature too?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nq0blim6gqyxh3...s.png?dl=0

320)
I can't summon a flying unit on a rock formation, "must be summoned on tiles they can enter", it is a flying unit. I can summon on the square next to it and move it over without any problems.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mj7yv9a9qg6ib5...n.png?dl=0

321)
Normaly when I click animate dead it says "no valid targets". When a hero dies I can now suddenly click the Animate dead spell, but there is no popup.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mygfigxhuqvcjk...o.mp4?dl=0

322)
Sometimes I accidentaly click past an event popup, but I can't see what event it was with F6, took me a bit to figure out it was an atlantis event in this case..

323)
Atlantis event summons some pretty hefty ruins in turn 330. Gave me 3 ruins, one had a colossus and 3-4 great wyrms and gave eternal night(very rare), other ruin was full of wraiths and gave 7457 mana and last ruin had 5 sky drakes and gave 8687 mana.
At the point where you can kill those ruins just getting mana is quite anticlimactic.. Intentionel?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/n8w4ynsodaarkg...1.png?dl=0

324)
Pathing for AI. This work somewhat reasonably vs arch angels too.. And I have seen some sky drakes just turn around and move back towards their starting point..
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hxi4b03rhar62u...I.mp4?dl=0

AI 9 arch angels (unbuffed and no wizard spells) vs 9 demon lords observable auto combat with spells. AI win, but lose 4 of its arch angels.
Same combat where I play. My 9 demon lords kill all the angels and I win with zero loses. (I ainmate one of my demon lords and turn him undead though.)
Arch Angels still feels very scary as undead though..


Note: The readibility is quite bad in the Shift+H function. The font letters looks the same as the numbers. G=6 R=A 0=O
G6, PR10, PO10, F10, R10, GR66 have the same font so it looks like GG, PA10, P010 F10 A10 GAGG
Maybe change the letts to g, Pr, Po, F, r, gr for easier readibility?
Also.. This is way too awesome function.. Maybe consider this as a setting in the standard game? (Own citys only of course). Hmm.. Or maybe just the city name and what is being produced actually?

[Seravy]

314. Strange, items with 5 powers should be working correctly. This has 4 anyway (+2 defense is default on plate mails).
This looks like it either failed to load the abilities or they were overwritten by an empty item somehow.
...confirmed, it didn't load the abilities from the INI file. It was loading the item power database only after converting items.ini into items.dat so all the items became empty with no abilities.
Fixed for the next upload.
318. Yes, all of those are intentional
319. Feature.
320. Flying units can't enter those tiles, only noncorporeal can as far as I remember.
321. Fixed for the next upload.
323. Intentional. One of the three contains a very rare spell specifically which is the main prize. The other two can contain a rare spell or 1-2 item(s) or mana.
324. That's expected. I mean, that is the shortest route to their target. The only way to change that would be to adjust target selection to attack the units blocking the way but it would be very hard to define the rules for when that needs to happen. Attacking the closer target already has higher priority but it's often not enough to outweight the other factors, in this case the fact Demon Lords have a dangerous ranged attack so they are a preferred target.