Interface improvements

[kyrub]

I meant add a combat advisor which will show you how much damage

Never ever. You surely know how to use your head.

@b0rsuk
I will link "D" to the same function as SPACE, that should do the job, no?

[I like Serena]

Yes, I forgot to mention: these are all great ideas!!
I hope to see as many as possible in the future.

How about a setting for those who find Impossible too easy? :P

I agree there, only if I put severe restrictions on myself, on the initial picks, or if I really have some bad luck (unexpected early raiders), is there any chance for me to lose on impossible.
And if I'm on an island, it almost is a guaranteed win, since AI is not very good at finding me there. (Except a couple of times, when AI came flying in with iron-skinned creatures.)

[kyrub]

any chance for me to lose on impossible.

Well, guys, as you already know, bigger bonuses will probably not bring a real AI improvement (in case you ILS want to change them, the bonuses table are starting at 0x2B48A). AI swims in money and mana already, it is bundled with units. This only higlights its under-achieving.

So, for me, this is more a question of improving the AI (my job) ... and improving the game balance (Catnip?)! As Aureus has shown, once you cut out the simplest "eploit" ways to win the game and once you balance out other choices (so that AI does less sub-level decisions), the game gets significantly harder.

I see your request as a challenge to Catwalk's (or b0rsuk's or anybody's) mod. That will make the game victory more difficult to achieve. - I still want to have an extra option for those who find it too hard now. The change is quite uneasy, though.

[Catwalk]

Never ever. You surely know how to use your head.

*pouts and runs off to ILS begging for feature changes in the shell*

And I agree with you about difficulty, more resources wouldn't really matter. For that matter, I don't really know how difficult Impossible is with the latest version of Insecticide :P

[kyrub]

There could be another Extra difficulty options, that can make the game harder
(by the way, I have no feedback on the current ones - I don't know if they are used by players at all).


One thing springed to my mind when I saw Catwalk's tournament 'dwarven blitzkrieg' win:
an option to cut out the 100 turns protecting diplomatic period (AI aggresive from the start).


If you are able to kill AI Wizards in less than 100 turns, you surely need that one on.

[Catwalk]

That would actually be really good, seeing as the start is when the AI is able to pressure you the most. Having it optional would be perfect.

[b0rsuk]

While we're at it, I would enjoy an ability to customize enemy wizards at least partially (starting race). Optional, of course. Couldn't the existing interface be modified to handle this ?

[kyrub]

I would enjoy an ability to customize enemy wizards at least partially (starting race)

Tempting. With the interface missing these things are always extra hard (I don't understand the interface part of the code very well, just its surface).

@Catwalk
OK. Note taken. I am looking forward to it.

[Catwalk]

I'm guessing customization of enemy wizards is another thing Serena's shell could do nicely.

[I like Serena]

Well, guys, as you already know, bigger bonuses will probably not bring a real AI improvement (in case you ILS want to change them, the bonuses table are starting at 0x2B48A). AI swims in money and mana already, it is bundled with units. This only higlights its under-achieving.

Hmm, for now these are just a bunch of numbers.
Apparently these are 4 times 10 words for each of the difficulty levels.
And you wrote once before that 0x2B4D2 was the AI Power base for Impossible (400%).
Do you know more about these numbers?

--ILSe