Caster of Magic II Brainstorming Megathread

[MrBiscuits]

Cities could cost maintenance to run, which scales by the number of cities you have. You could have a building, the courthouse which halves the maintenance for that city. 
It's what a lot of 4X games do to prevent infinite city sprawl. 

This means that expanding to quickly would be impossible and also means that there isn't the crazy rush at the start of the game to get settlers out before the AI steals every available site.

By the way does the AI get a bonus on building settlers? They seem to have built 3-4 by the time I have one.

[Seravy]

Cities could cost maintenance to run, which scales by the number of cities you have. You could have a building, the courthouse which halves the maintenance for that city.
It's what a lot of 4X games do to prevent infinite city sprawl.

Eww, no, that's why I don't like those other games.
Controlling more territory is better - if you can defend it- that's the core game mechanic of 4X. The only way expansion should be restricted is through the "if you can defend it" part.

By the way does the AI get a bonus on building settlers? They seem to have built 3-4 by the time I have one.

No they don't, not beyond the usual gold and production modifier.
They get the 2 starting settlers the same way the human players do though.

[MrBiscuits]

Eww, no, that's why I don't like those other games.

Controlling more territory is better - if you can defend it- that's the core game mechanic of 4X. The only way expansion should be restricted is through the "if you can defend it" part.

Yes I know how you feel about that sort of thing, but on the other hand without it the game is a mad rush to send out settlers early to grab the best spots. The AI seems to know where they are without exploring the map or is that my imagination?

Also the other bonus is that you don't need to slow unit movement down to a crawl to prevent an early hero or stack steamrollering the whole map.

No they don't, not beyond the usual gold and production modifier.

They get the 2 starting settlers the same way the human players do though.

This surprises me, maybe I'm just too slow with building settlers, but the AI is always well ahead of me. They have 3-4 cities before I'm even building my first settler.

[Seravy]

Yes I know how you feel about that sort of thing, but on the other hand without it the game is a mad rush to send out settlers early to grab the best spots. The AI seems to know where they are without exploring the map or is that my imagination?

Yes, AI scouting is not an existing feature.

I usually see "mad rush to push settlers" end with the human player's defeat because they can't build the troops to defend those cities if they spent that much on the settlers instead.
Of course the AI will often lose these small cities as well but it doesn't make a difference from game design perspective if cities change control between two AI players - and if the human conquers them then he is back to square one, he has to defend too many cities, except in this case it is on top of dealing with an ongoing war.
And while being able to conquer cities means you save on settler costs, the war and not being able to select the race is enough of a cost to make this fair.

This surprises me, maybe I'm just too slow with building settlers, but the AI is always well ahead of me. They have 3-4 cities before I'm even building my first settler.

Yeah that's clearly confirmation bias then.

Fortress city + 2 starting settlers = They have 3 cities. That's the number everyone starts on.

You too have 3 cities before building your first settler.

So you're only saying they started building their first settler before you. Which they do because the AI does prioritize building settlers quite high.


By the way, unlike other games, in CoM, pacing mostly depends on spell advancement and if city spam gets reduced then cities built later would simply fail to be relevant - I don't think any cities built after 1415 matter at all, and even cities after 1410 are really late and only relevant if the game is long.
How many times did we hear players say "I can't build new cities due to this Meteor Storm"? Never because by then building cities is completely obsolete.

Relevance of new cities will be slightly better in CoM II due to games most likely becoming longer thanks to higher player counts, no razing, and more map options but even then delaying them isn't really needed.

[MrBiscuits]

Yes I know how you feel about that sort of thing, but on the other hand without it the game is a mad rush to send out settlers early to grab the best spots. The AI seems to know where they are without exploring the map or is that my imagination?

Yes, AI scouting is not an existing feature.

I usually see "mad rush to push settlers" end with the human player's defeat because they can't build the troops to defend those cities if they spent that much on the settlers instead.
Of course the AI will often lose these small cities as well but it doesn't make a difference from game design perspective if cities change control between two AI players - and if the human conquers them then he is back to square one, he has to defend too many cities, except in this case it is on top of dealing with an ongoing war.
And while being able to conquer cities means you save on settler costs, the war and not being able to select the race is enough of a cost to make this fair.

This surprises me, maybe I'm just too slow with building settlers, but the AI is always well ahead of me. They have 3-4 cities before I'm even building my first settler.

Yeah that's clearly confirmation bias then.

Fortress city + 2 starting settlers = They have 3 cities. That's the number everyone starts on.

You too have 3 cities before building your first settler.

So you're only saying they started building their first settler before you. Which they do because the AI does prioritize building settlers quite high.


By the way, unlike other games, in CoM, pacing mostly depends on spell advancement and if city spam gets reduced then cities built later would simply fail to be relevant - I don't think any cities built after 1415 matter at all, and even cities after 1410 are really late and only relevant if the game is long.
How many times did we hear players say "I can't build new cities due to this Meteor Storm"? Never because by then building cities is completely obsolete.

Relevance of new cities will be slightly better in CoM II due to games most likely becoming longer thanks to higher player counts, no razing, and more map options but even then delaying them isn't really needed.

I play on small and tiny maps, so I only ever start with one settler. On tiny maps the AI knowing where the land is is a massive advantage, I'd say it's almost impossible for the player to grab any spots unless they are on or right next to the starting island.

On standard maps this doesn't seem like such a problem.

[Seravy]

Oh, yes, I can see that being a problem on Tiny maps.
In fact they AI probably builds more settlers there initially because the settlers have to leave the home continent and then that triggers the "there is no settler on my continent so I have to build another one". Only after the "let's not do that because I already have too many settlers globally on the world map" activates, will they actually build less settlers due to the lower land size setting.

It can't be helped though - if there is less land, then early land grabbing is even more critical and definitely the right strategy.

[MrBiscuits]

Oh, yes, I can see that being a problem on Tiny maps.
In fact they AI probably builds more settlers there initially because the settlers have to leave the home continent and then that triggers the "there is no settler on my continent so I have to build another one". Only after the "let's not do that because I already have too many settlers globally on the world map" activates, will they actually build less settlers due to the lower land size setting.

It can't be helped though - if there is less land, then early land grabbing is even more critical and definitely the right strategy.

Well it's definitely the right strategy, it's just a problem as the AI knows where all the land is and the player doesn't.
Is this something that might be changed in CoM II?

Also they get discounts on water walking, building ships, floating island and wraith form, which gives them further advantage.

The other issue is land being spread out so much that the AI has many units in each city by the time you arrive at them, so it's a lot harder to take them by force.

[Seravy]

Well it's definitely the right strategy, it's just a problem as the AI knows where all the land is and the player doesn't.
Is this something that might be changed in CoM II?

No, AI scouting is not planned. Designing an AI that can work with incomplete information is way beyond the realm of possibilities.

[Seravy]

Sorting out the ideas in my "ideas.txt" file. Found some that weren't posted yet.

- What if naval combat had some randomly placed island tiles that ships cannot enter to make terrain a bit more varied?
- What if we had a new AI objective : "Egoist", wants to increase casting skill as much as possible. (similar but different from Theurgist who wants to max research potential instead)
- Pandora's box should summon the monster next to the hero who holds the item
- Spawned neutrals should store the intended target player they were generated for and not target anyone else, AI should not attack neutrals that target other players. 
- Doom gaze, all gaze attacks hit every figure but this does not. Change or keep as is?
- Disintegrate should work against Charmed heroes because there is no resistance roll actually happening and text says "Never fails a resistance roll". Or change Charmed help text?
- Chaos Channels does not show a unit aura. Maybe it should? It's the only non-dispellable unit buff though.
- AI demand cities in exchange for peace.
- AI demand high sum of gold or high quality spell for peace or treaty (additional outcome on the diplomacy roll, between "demand a spell" and "negotiation failed" OR used in response for "declare war on" and "break alliance with" only instead of the normal demands)
- End of month report show dispelled global enchantments! Require Detect Magic to be cast for this effect?
- Very high difficulty AI maybe get 3 swordsmen in new outposts instead of 1? (might be unnecessary now as the AI summons garrisons in new outpost?)
- Orc Horde could be a 9 figure unit? (possibly at a slightly higher cost or other adjustments)
- Replace "Dismiss" with "Retire" on heroes. Retired heroes provide various small random benefits for the cities they decide to live in. (require the hero to be at least level 5?)
- Sorcery should get a better familiar. A bug? Every other realm gets something way cooler.
- Option for "Auto" in normal combat do cast spells. This would be asked every time the button is pressed. If enabled, the spell choices and targeting should most likely be worse than the AI's own.

[MrBiscuits]

Any chance of revisiting the mechanics for spells fizzling in nodes (and with counter magic)?

It seems annoying that even when I have 300 casting skill I still can't reliably cast a web in a non-nature node. It also doesn't make sense that you can cast high cost spells no problem in the late game, but not the cheap ones. I also don't like the random nature of spells working or not, it makes battles too random when one player can cast prayer and the other can't purely by chance.

I see nodes making non-aligned spells "harder" to cast, so easier spells like web or black sleep should be possible to cast once your casting skill gets high enough. How's about non-aligned spells cost 3x casting skill (if you don't have astrologer)? So gradually the lower cost spells become available as the game progresses, also it gives the game some variety later on rather than just endless spamming high prayer and flame strike in every battle as you would need very high casting skill to cast them in nodes.

I don't think it should cost 3x mana, just it uses up your casting skill faster.

Other things to consider with nodes, should the dispelling of non-aligned spells happen in the other map squares the node "covers"? Also should player and enemy aligned fantastic creatures heal completely at the end of battle like the ones in the node at the start do?

Also it would be good to see which map squares the node covers even before it has been melded. Nothing worse than some raiders turning up at your city with +2 stats that you had no way of knowing about before.
Or perhaps this effect doesn't happen until the node has been melded.