Master of Magic unofficial patch (latest version)

[Anthony]

Removing the rare pick from 11 books would make 11 book strategies marginal, though death still works. I think your best options at that point are:
Chaos: not even sure what I'd take.
Death: probably shadow demons and black prayer. That kills almost anything, but shadow demons are slow and high upkeep, and don't create free garrisons.
Life: I'd probably take plane shift and prayer, but that's hardly an auto-win.
Nature: pathfinding and basilisks is still plenty nasty, but probably within the AIs ability to deal with.
Sorcery: flight and whatever.

[coldsteel]

Yes, it's certainly no good if the AI shoots and spells at the 'wrong' human troop in other situations except when wraiths arrive! It's just a situation where the AI could win the battle, but instead loses, which was on the previoius topic of room for improvement in AI strategy. Thanks for considering tho! Love the patch(es).

The problem with wraiths isn't really AI targeting; it doesn't help, but a unit of wraiths is pretty much unbeatable early game even with perfect play (in my mod, I'm considering reducing counters on wraiths and death knights from 4 to 2).

Yes, wraiths are the toughest - but the computer could still beat them sometimes if it aimed its magic-shooters, alchemy-equipped-shooters, and magic spells against the wraith instead of those lowly undead hell hounds and undead spearmen

For me that's the way to avoid, modelling the AI on an extreme, unbalanced feature of the game. This way, we finish with an AI able to stop Wraiths or an Invulnerable Guardian spirit or Pathfinding Basilisk or ..., but in 95% of other cases the AI completely fails to do its duty and it'll be worse than vanilla.

11-book strategies are extreme cases, they create massive (albeit enjoyable) havoc in game balance. The only good way to deal with them is to mod their mechanics or - most simply - not play with them. Nota bene: if you dislike AI playing with them, like Jafar and his Storm giants, mod the original 11-books wizards in Magic.exe, and the probability of appearance of an 11-book AI wizard will steeply drop.

There are valid ways to partly counter 11-book strategies, and I have used some in 1.40 already (invulnerable GS is harder than in vanilla; also, prayer is not bugged in favour of the player anymore!). For 11-book wraiths, there's only 1 idea I have that could be implemented (and that would not harm AI seriously), and that is DISPEL EVIL as a tech priority for white book's player, when there's a Death Human player around. Dispel evil, uncommon spell, will take a whole wraith unit down in one turn. - But that's colour limited.

[pi4t]

Er...the link doesn't seem to be working. It just tells me that 'The specified thread does not exist.'

I've tried the link from GOG's forum, but that has the same issue.

[nevill]

In case kyrub still browse these forums.

Since 1.40l the following change was made:
- [game option] new difficulty level "Extreme", same as Impossible, but with 25% lower AI bonuses

I believe this was done by renaming Intro mode as Easy, Easy as Normal, etc. However, as a result Normal does not behave like Normal anymore. For example, it does not follow the rules on fleeing as they are stated in the manual (there is no 50% chance of losing troops when one flees from combat), and only starts to follow the manual from Hard difficulty and higher. This essentially removes the ability to play without either bonuses or penalties compared to the AI.

I understand that the patch was probably meant for experienced players, and those play Impossible anyway, but still this change does not seem necessary.

[nevill]

Two more bugs encountered.

1) Attacking a unit of Giant Spiders with a stack of two Sprites results in the following bug. When the spiders web one of the sprites, move the other one forward. The webbed unit loses its flying ability and becomes vulnerable to attacks from the ground, however, the AI can't tell which of the sprites was grounded. It then proceeds to attack the closest sprite. Since that sprite is still flying, AI units can't harm it, but the sprite can harm them on a counterattack. This leads to battles with no casualties where there should have been some.
2) The game crashes if the last city you take from a rival wizard was an outpost. If you let it grow into a hamlet, the game continues normally.

kyrub, I can e-mail you savegames if you are interested.

[FrancoK]

For Insecticide, I used to have a few last AI plans, namely:
- another revision of AI stacks, since they still move in small groups; I even got so far as to identify the problem in vanilla code

That's nice. If AI has a lot of units, better for them to rally together in a save place, then move to attack.
However, if AI has not so many units, it should be able to move even with a single unit.
Of course, 3 great Wyrm are more powerful than 8 spearmen, so it could be not easy to find a good balance.

- AI "borderwars", to let AI stacks attack directly your neighbouring cities

That could change the way to play to many players, including me.
Anyway, attacking the capital city is not a wrong move, since it will remove from the game the wizard spells for a while.
To avoid going from "heavily defend the capital and leave minimal defense to the other cities" to "heavily defend the city close to the border and leave minimal defense to the other cities" I suggest you to tie the behavior(s) to the personality of the wizard.
So a maniacal/aggressive or lawful wizards can go for the capital, while chaotic/peaceful or Ruthless can try to get the closer cities first, just to make an example.
Having some wizards looking for the capital and others looking for the closest cities can be very challenging.

- AI tactical build with shooters waiting with their shot

Very well played. Of course you'll keep in count that a shooter with 8 arrows against a cavalry unit will shoot since the beginning or if a warlock unit can wipe out an enemy unit at distance is better do kill it immediately to avoid being killed by other spells.

- a thourough AI tactical spell revision, with less luck factor

I see this better in a mod instead of a patch...

I looked into AI-AI battles being run as real (as that would help the game a loot), which is simple, but the ultra hard part is to let all graphics suspended.

Nice.

(Then again, I keep getting messages from people who are dissatisfied with current Insecticide difficulty. I have squeezed the fun out of their beloved game, they say, it's too hard now. Anti-motivating.)

I personally do not bother and you shouldn't too. You've made a great job.
Anyway, if you like so I can create a mini patch to restore the standard AI. Please contact me if you would like it.

[Giant2005]

The download link is broken.

[orielis]

After reading all this stuff, it makes me want to get the Insecticide patch. With the link to it here broken, are there any other options to get it?

[orielis]

After reading all this stuff, it makes me want to get the Insecticide patch. With the link to it here broken, are there any other options to get it?

Well, ok, almost as soon as I posted this I happened upon a workaround to get to what seems to be the 1.40n patch.

If you go to the Master of Orion forum here, there is a post that lists a patch to MOO1. The link there works and takes you to a file directory for that patch. If you click on the parent directory link from that page, it lists the various directories. Included is one for Master of Magic (MOM) which appears to contain the unofficial 1.40n patch as well as a file for Plight -- an updated and expanded in game help file.

I've downloaded the files and I'll see if I can make them work.

[kyrub]

I fixed the link, finally. My apologies.