Caster of Magic II Brainstorming Megathread

[Cruel100]

I would like Vampires too but it's difficult to design them in a way that makes them functionally different from Wraiths in a way that both have a useful and relevant role in gameplay - they are both flying, life draining melee creatures.
Mummies might be interesting as well, or in general, a creature that can put combat unit curses on things it attacks, probably in the form of a touch attack.

I like this idea. Perhaps the vampire could have a life draining magical, like a smoke in lore and wraith form for graphics.
Another simplest ways to implement the vampire and the mummy I thought of: Maybe as heroes with prerequisites with 3 (maybe) death magic books.

We're getting too far ahead with that though - first we need to discuss if we want to redesign the spell system by adding more spells, and if yes, how and at which tier, then we need to design all the spells for all realms - we can't have one realm get more or fewer spells than another - and after that, can we have a new summoning spell, if there is room for it in the new system. All of this is for milestone 4 though, see https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...p?tid=9921

One way that I see a possible inclusion of high demand for animals or special units is to keep them all in the same tier and have very similar characteristics, something perhaps like rare spells.

This suggestion is a reminder of the GURPS heroes RPG system. In it you defined for example that you could fly, or that you had a super strong punch and that consumed you some character points. But the visual effect could be your choice: with light, putting your arms up, saying something, shining your eye... but that is not effective in the damage roll, for example. In this line of thought, a good number of animals or units could be built in a similar way, in such a way that the balance between the magic groups could be maintained:

For example:
*Giant scorpion for death magic - I myself would like to suggest a giant scorpion, like mummy movies, Clash of the Titans, among countless other fantasy ones.

*Rhino, Elephant, Mammoth or Saber-toothed Tiger, Giant Sloth for Nature - (any big, strong animals) carnivorous plant, Ents (The Lord of the Rings walking giant tree)...

*Chaos Golem (Lava, Fire, Electricity) or Phoenix, or little demons for Chaos magic - Fire animals, electricity (Pikachu? LOL).

*Giant eagle, giant owl for Sorcery - Giant flying animal (The Lord of the Rings?).

*many little doves or Giant Dove or another type of angel or spirit for Life (or even leave without an animal - or yet think of something totally different to maintain the number of spells.)

Of course, this is not an in-depth analysis, and some realm of magic may have holes so as not to give the impression that any choice of magical realms would be played in the same way. In general, all of these animals could have more or less the same attack damage, with a simple or other peculiarity: either flying, or more damage from poison, or anything to give a little differentiation. That way it would fill the gap of animals requested by the fans a little. I'm really just brainstorming...

Also, regarding new creatures, I'm not an artist so while I can try making new art for creatures, it's unlikely to be any good. So we'll also need to find someone who actually makes art for the creature, after we decided we want that creature spell.

(for the same reason, new races are unlikely as they'd need art for at least 4-5 units.)

You're right.

[zitro1987]

Based on the several critical reviews of CoM in GOG.com, players really dislike or outright hate your AI stalling or escaping routine (i believe referring to neutral AI). You might want to consider making an exception to neutral AI for all difficulties, at a very minimum as an option, to expand your fanbase. Again, this is a feature not seen in other 4X games i know of and in regards to neutral AI, there is no fairness argument

[Seravy]

Yes, that is on my todo list.

[mercy]

Based on the several critical reviews of CoM in GOG.com, players really dislike or outright hate your AI stalling or escaping routine (i believe referring to neutral AI). You might want to consider making an exception to neutral AI for all difficulties, at a very minimum as an option, to expand your fanbase.  Again, this is a feature not seen in other 4X games i know of and in regards to neutral AI, there is no fairness argument

Nice point!  Game should throw a dice if enemies are fanatics and continue fighting until their last drop of blood. There are cult fanatics or berserkers, who simply aren't interested in cowardly running. Warriors of Sparta for example. Same with animals. Jackals could be cowardly. But tigers or spiders should never ever flee.

[ksasaki]

Based on the several critical reviews of CoM in GOG.com, players really dislike or outright hate your AI stalling or escaping routine (i believe referring to neutral AI). You might want to consider making an exception to neutral AI for all difficulties, at a very minimum as an option, to expand your fanbase.  Again, this is a feature not seen in other 4X games i know of and in regards to neutral AI, there is no fairness argument

I am probably in the minority here, but I think it's great that the cpu tries to stall out, I think it's a perfectly valid strategy and I'm sure the same complainers have no problem stalling out the AI in their own battles.

I feel really challenged by Caster of Magic and feel that the AI uses smart fortress garrisoning strategies, attacks you at your weakest point, and really am given a mental battle versus usual AIs which kill you with 10x the army but sacrifices 95% of it stupidly to beat you.  Thank you for this awesome mod, and I'm looking forward to CoM 2!

PS I'm a software engineer by profession, so willing to chip in if you feel you need any help!  This game and Master of Orion are of the timeless classic variety that I feel i will always come back to.

[massone]

Based on the several critical reviews of CoM in GOG.com, players really dislike or outright hate your AI stalling or escaping routine (i believe referring to neutral AI). You might want to consider making an exception to neutral AI for all difficulties, at a very minimum as an option, to expand your fanbase.  Again, this is a feature not seen in other 4X games i know of and in regards to neutral AI, there is no fairness argument

I am probably in the minority here, but I think it's great that the cpu tries to stall out, I think it's a perfectly valid strategy and I'm sure the same complainers have no problem stalling out the AI in their own battles.

I feel really challenged by Caster of Magic and feel that the AI uses smart fortress garrisoning strategies, attacks you at your weakest point, and really am given a mental battle versus usual AIs which kill you with 10x the army but sacrifices 95% of it stupidly to beat you.  Thank you for this awesome mod, and I'm looking forward to CoM 2!

PS I'm a software engineer by profession, so willing to chip in if you feel you need any help!  This game and Master of Orion are of the timeless classic variety that I feel i will always come back to.

You're definitely not in the minority of CoM's long-time fans. There's a reason MOM still has such a following after all this time, and Seravy's efforts with AI and balancing are a big part of it. But the game and mod are reaching new audiences now, many of which are more casual players. Also there was the issue that in an earlier release the lower difficulties had this AI behaviour as well, and that's obviously going to annoy the players who don't want to play against AIs that are too strong. I suspect the majority of those reviews are probably because they played that version. Can't see why anybody playing on higher difficulties would complain about the AI not using a legitimate tactic.

[zitro1987]

Again, I’m referring to neutral AI like lair and node battles, not wizard to wizard battle where the goal of making AI smarter is generally accepted. The complaints seem to revolve around lair defenders stalling. Players using higher difficulties might prefer night stalkers smartly attacking weakest unit than not fighting, Or the lone surviving spider battling it out instead of running into corners.

[Slingers]

@beasts that run away and the spell-system:

Even an apex predator like a tiger can be tired, hungry, injured, outnumbered ... The internet suggests Asiatic wild dogs to chase him on a tree. So yeah, thats stalling in nature. Tigers and many others we do not have in the game, which is sad ofc. Yellow zombies would almost look like mummies, isn't it? Also the question is, if changing the spell-system from the beginning would be less work, compared to balancing the existing one and later to change everything one more time. Better to leave spaces and recycle existing graphics, I would think. What about one extra tier on top of the others ? Like "ultra rare". Some game-changing spells should become more difficult to reach, not to have too many of them in the game. Spell blast could have a weak and a strong version. The name for the spell that unlocks Armorers guilds could be "Elevation".

[MilesBeyond]

It's an overall issue with strategy gaming in general, I think. You can't create an AI that both newcomers and veterans will be happy with. If the AI is smart enough to challenge veterans, it's frustrating for newcomers. If newcomers are able to keep pace with it, it's boring for veterans. Of course part of the problem there too is the toxic mindset that pervades a lot of gaming culture of "Only filthy casuals play on easy mode." If it weren't for that, things would be a lot simpler.

Like the enemy kiting you around the battlefield, I can see being frustrated with that. I don't have an issue with it (except for when it comes to teleporting units, whose turns take forever as they use every single movement they have to randomly bounce around the battlefield, but that's a different issue and one that I assume will be fixed if it can), but I get that others might. But when people complain about things like the AI expanding too aggressively, I mean, that's kind of part and parcel with competent AI. You can't have an AI that's smart and an AI that doesn't pressure you. The two are mutually exclusive.

As far as expanding the spell arsenal goes, I'd definitely recommend caution. Feature creep can be a huge issue with this sort of project, and considerations like new spells or races should be based on "What needs and gaps does the game have right now and how can we fill those" rather than "This is a neat concept and it's possible, let's throw it in." That way lies madness. I find it's helpful to remember that every new spell, unit, race, or feature added will necessarily dilute the game a little bit. This isn't always a bad thing, but it can be, and it means that chucking in new things just for the sake of it is normally a bad idea. Not that I think Seravy would do that.

[Seravy]

Regarding combat attacks.

I'd like to get rid of the problem that units with no legal attack types end up attacking to deal no damage and receive a counterattack. This happens when you try to shoot at a target that has missile (or magic) immunity but is flying and you can't hit flying units either.
An obvious solution is to simply mark invalid attacks as invalid : basically if the unit can't shoot at the target due to immunity, the cursor switches to the red X and clicking does nothing.
However, this is not functionally equivalent. Shooting at the target will add suppression, even if it deals no damage, so shooting at the missile immune unit before attacking is a valid strategy which would disappear.

So I see several possible ways to resolve the problem :

1. We can change the rule to "Invalid ranged attacks (Missile or Magic immunity only) add no suppression". If the attack cannot reach or hurt the target, they won't get distracted by it so their ability to retaliate to melee attacks stays unaffected is a valid justification. In this case, marking the unit as an invalid target is the correct solution and no further action is necessary and obvious downside is losing an existing - but somewhat counter-intuitive and human player only - strategy.

2. Keep everything as is, but mark ranged attacks invalid when invalid melee would be available as the replacement. So you can shoot if you are at least 1 tile away from the enemy, otherwise you can't use either type of attack.

3. Get rid of the "pick melee instead" feature entirely. If ranged attacks are available, always use them, no matter how useless they are.

4. If both melee and ranged are available, open a menu where the player can select which one to use. Otherwise use whatever is available. Ranged on units with immunity count as available. The advantage here is the player also gets control of which attack to use if they otherwise would not, for example on a hero that has both a high melee and ranged attack. The downside is, player has to select what to do so it's slower and opens up a window for mistake (for example an enemy chaos spawn is already next to your row of archers. You'd never want to click "melee" by accident and clicking ranged for each archer is a pain.)

5. Always default to using the ranged attack if available, like 3, but holding Shift can force it to default to melee instead.