Random questions COMII

[Slingers]

but where is monster budget modding?

Isn't that the last two sections that say: Stack budgets are 100% of the default? But what could the default values be?

You could try an experiment based on Drake's formula and changed percentage for a level of difficulty.

[Suppanut]

What is default value?

[Slingers]

What is default value?

I did a little experiment (Easy difficulty/ 3 cities):

Default->

First Monster stack = 1 unit of Boars in June 1506 (turn 66)

Modding->  [MonsterStrengthDifficulty1=1000]

First Monster-stack = 9 units of Boars in November 1505 (turn 59):

[drake178]

I did a little experiment (Easy difficulty/ 3 cities):

Default->

First Monster stack = 1 unit of Boars in June 1506 (turn 66)

That lines up with the formulae with 0-based indexing - a side effect of which would be a static maximum monster cost of 60 on Easy, since the other part of the sum is a product of the difficulty. You could probably test it using something like:

Code:

FirstMonsterTurn=5
MonsterCounterA=0
MonsterCounterC=1
MonsterCounterN=5
MonsterStrengthDifficulty1=5500

to see if you get something on turn 5 (this should yield a trigger with a budget of 55). If you do get a monster, then adjusting MonsterStrengthDifficulty1 and MonsterCapDifficulty1 at the same time would probably allow you to confirm the rest of the formulae for Easy, from where you could move up to the others.

[Suppanut]

I did a little experiment (Easy difficulty/ 3 cities):

Default->

First Monster stack = 1 unit of Boars in June 1506 (turn 66)

That lines up with the formulae with 0-based indexing - a side effect of which would be a static maximum monster cost of 60 on Easy, since the other part of the sum is a product of the difficulty. You could probably test it using something like:

Code:

FirstMonsterTurn=5
MonsterCounterA=0
MonsterCounterC=1
MonsterCounterN=5
MonsterStrengthDifficulty1=5500

to see if you get something on turn 5 (this should yield a trigger with a budget of 55). If you do get a monster, then adjusting MonsterStrengthDifficulty1 and MonsterCapDifficulty1 at the same time would probably allow you to confirm the rest of the formulae for Easy, from where you could move up to the others.

Thank you for clarification.

[Slingers]

Does anyone know if Nightshade still works the same in Caster of Magic for Windows as it does in Vanilla MOM? ... apart from the new effect of the Cathedral, I mean. Nightshade will no longer appear in the enchantment list on the city screen. The Surveyor mentions for Nightshade: Protects city from curses. Alchimists Guild allows the use of it.

[Anskiy]

What exactly do AIs do when casting Enchant Item or Create Artifact? Do they pick attributes on the item forged like the player does, or do they select from the list of predesigned items? I ask because they seem to get good gear suspiciously often on their heroes when the game lasts till the middle to late game, while I get lots of lairs with mediocre or good gear that doesn't make the cut quite often.

[Seravy]

Does anyone know if Nightshade still works the same in Caster of Magic for Windows as it does in Vanilla MOM? ... apart from the new effect of the Cathedral, I mean. Nightshade will no longer appear in the enchantment list on the city screen. The Surveyor mentions for Nightshade: Protects city from curses. Alchimists Guild allows the use of it.

Yes, it works the same way.
It can't be shown as an enchantment because it isn't one and the engine can't work with that.

What exactly do AIs do when casting Enchant Item or Create Artifact?

They used to generate an item the same way as lairs in older versions (probably around alpha/beta).

Nowadays they do this :
1. Pick a slot that's empty or has a lower than 1000 value item on a hero. If there are no slots to pick, generate a "lair item" instead. Slot with lowest value item and heroes with higher equipment priority are chosen first.
2. Pick item type that matches the slot. In case of a dual weapon slot, ranged weapon is chosen.
3. Go through all item abilities in a hardcoded order and add the ability if it matches a hardcoded rule and it's valid for the item and budget is enough, otherwise skip it. Continue until the budget runs out of 4 abilities are picked.
The hardcoded order starts with Flight, Shadow, Phantasmal, Regeneration, Invisibility, Haste, Doom, Wraithform, Insulation, True Sight, Spell charges, Spell Save -4, Spell Save -3, etc.

[Suppanut]

I just have my first expert level difficulty recently on my own Warlord mod and have a bit surprise when I play and end up have to fought spell of mastery war as ai wizard start casting spell of mastery very early (year 1518, 222 turns since start of game) while everyone else seem to still mostly stuck at rare level spell or early very rare. Does AI research pace and spell of mastery war happened faster as difficulty go up or I just have mess up abnormally game (with Doomsday appear as early as 1510, Enlightenment as early as 1512, Planetary mastery as early as 1514)? And if time for research and spell of mastery faster as difficulty go up, what is estimate time for spell of mastery war at each difficulty level?

[prokolyo]

How engine decide which units would appear on front or back line deployment in battle? How could I predict where my unit would appear? (if possible I want engine to always deploy invisible units from back to front to trick player of number of units they would face in battle)

I'd like to know the answer of this too...