Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Seravy]

Yes, 5.6d is the latest and it says "5.6" on the title screen.

Low cost item powers appear more often on random generated items. There is of course the option of forcing the game to always give you a redefined (non-random) item if one exists, in that case you'll only find random items if they have too low cost to match any predefined ones.

[Seravy]

5.61
-Fixed bug: figures can move around in some units during Teleport/Merging/Summon/Raise/Animate Dead animations  (by Drake178)
-Fixed bug: Oracles don't reveal terrain when conquered rather than built (by Drake178)
-Fixed bug: control changed heroes can't use their item charges (by Drake178)
-Fixed bug: control changed heroes get the wrong -spell save modifiers (by Drake178)
-Fixed bug: AI looks at the above wrong spell save modifiers as well both for spell priority and targeting.
-Fixed bug: control changed heroes can't use their item charges (by Drake178)
-Fixed bug: the combat counter message shows the wrong name for control changed heroes (by Drake178)
-Fixed bug: control changed heroes check the wrong items for +moves/endurance
-Fixed bug: Hero abilities on control changed heroes look at wrong wizard data to determine if Leadership, Prayermaster, Guiding Beacon, Supply Commander, Divine Barrier, Soul Linker, Logistics needs to be applied.
-Fixed bug: Combat global bonuses are not updated outside of end-of-turn. (Holy Bonus, Leadership, Soul Linker, Supply Commander, Divine Barrier, Guiding Beacon, Prayermaster, Resistance to All, Logistics)
-The cutoff for playing the “losing” BGM is now at 40% as powerful as the strongest player instead of 33%.
-When combat movement changing effects apply, the amount of immediate change to the unit's remaining movement takes into account the number of attacks already performed. This should guarantee the unit will always be able to do 2 melee attacks, not more or fewer. This applies even if the change is from passive effects. (A Logistics hero dying or being revived)
-Fixed bug : newly summoned units, raised or animated units don't have their combat movement adjusted by movement changing effects. (Entangle, Logistics)
-UI feature: combat spell targeting now also highlights the target tile  for non-unit spells, if it is valid for the spell being cast (By Drake178)
-UI feature: combat spell targeting has greatly improved responsiveness use a different register for the window struct pointer (By Drake178)
-Fixed cursor display bug : Summoning spells, Magic Vortex, Cracks Call, and Earth to Mud can be cast  on tiles outside of the valid playfield (By Drake178)
-Fixed cursor display bug : Summoning Spells can be cast on wall corners and central structures
-Fixed cursor display bug : Possession can be cast on Heroes
-Fixed bug : AI wasn't prioritizing heroes when targeting combat buffs
-Removed spell : Call Centaurs
-Added new spell : Wild Boars, combat summon, replacing Call Centaurs.
-Resist Elements now costs 440 RP.
-Wild Boars can appear in lairs and nodes.
-Fixed bug : The AI doesn't avoid targeting Fire Elementals with combat spells when it should due to incorredt unit ID in the list of combat creatures.
-Book/Retort and Very Rare spell treasure is now generated according to location. The Arcanus plane has Random(Player count+2) = 1-7 with maximal players, the Myrran plane has 1-3. Very Rare spells are counted as 1 pick. However if the human picks Myrran then the Arcanus plane has 3-5 picks and the Myrran plane has Random(Player count+1) = 1-6 with maximal players.
-Magic Vortexes can now enter the center structure tile when moving, even after the initial summoning.
-In the optional portrait files, the Unknown hero's unit sprites have been redrawn to match the character name and portrait.
-Fixed graphical bug: rocks are drawn over single figure units in battle (by Drake158)
-The AI now includes casting True Sight in his “cheap buff stacking” spell strategy. More True Sight will be included if the human player has Sorcery books.
-Fixed bug : AI was able to cast Construct Catapult despite Entangle in effect.
-AI now recognizes Construct Catapult as a spell that works against Flying Fortress.
-Removed RNG seed manipulation added in Insecticide.
-Removed RNG seed manipulation happening at the end-of-turn process.
-Counter Magic now has a starting strength of 70.
-Uranus' Blessing now applies a strength 50 Counter Magic.
Note : Previous saves are not compatible due to the presence of a new unit.

[myk002]

Nice. Thanks, Seravy! Out of curiosity, what effect do the RNG changes have?

[Seravy]

The end-of-turn one loaded the RNG seed from a variable, then the AI played their turns, then it was stored back into that variable. In theory this could have separated the AI's turns and actions from the player, meaning what you do in your turn has no effect on the AI choices, so even if you reload and replay the turn the same thing happens.
Except, it doesn't work. For two reasons. One, in combat the player can use the RNG by attacking or casting spells, so they will still influence the RNG for future AI rolls. And two, the player can take actions that change the AI's options, for example trade them a spell, then the AI has one more spell to select from, so it rolls a D10 instead of a D9, so the result will be different even though the RNG was initialized to the same seed.
In the end, it's pretty much impossible to make the player actions not change what the AI does after a reload - by definition the AI reacts to the game state which depends on what the player did during their turns.

The insecticide change loaded this same stored variable before finding treasure or summoning a hero, so you got the same hero or treasure even if you reloaded, UNLESS you played one more turn (remember, the AI used this same variable and their turns were affected by the player, or went and found a different treasure first. So now reloading will change your treasure.

This latter doesn't sound necessary but there is a catch. This AI variable starts from a constant value every time the game is launched. So if you start the game, load your save, and open up some treasure, you will use the same RND seed every time, as long as it's the first turn you are playing since you started the game. And this has, in my previous game, resulted in me finding two exactly identical items in two different lairs, the chance of which should be like one in ten million otherwise. So that's why I undid it. I have a feeling it wasn't even the first two times I saw that item, I bet I have seen it even before, just not twice in the same game...

[Seravy]

5.62
Note : Previous saves are not compatible due to overland unit data structure changes.
-New transportation rule : After a unit has been transported by a ship, it can only get transported further if it moves together with at least one of those ships that have been transporting it first that turn.
-Fixed bug : diplomacy variables have no effect on AI trade offers. New formula : offered trade value is increased by (REL+HREL/10) but a maximum of 6, plus 7 if the AI is allied and there is an enemy with at least 50% more power production than them in the game, then reduced by 0-2 at random.
-The AI will now avoid casting Focus Magic on Great Wyrms.
-Time Stop now costs 2000 mana to cast.
-Time Stop maintenance now increases by 150 after conquering a city.
-Conquering or razing cities now yields no gold during Time Stop.
-The random game generator now generates larger amounts of books in a realm slightly more often.
-The random game generator now generates slightly fewer retorts at a time.
-The random game generator now has “Power” settings updated to the current options available.
-Fixed bug: spells that use a list selector crash if they have over 6 valid targets. (by Drake178)
-Call Chaos now displays the correct animations without crashing the game. (by Drake178)
-In the optional portrait files, the Draconian hero is now Falulu instead of Fredrica.
-In the optional portrait files, the Draconian hero's unit sprites have been redrawn to match the character name and portrait.
-In the optional portrait files, the Draconian hero's attack type is Thrown instead of Fire Breath
-New RNG generator provided by Drake178

[Seravy]

Fixed random game generator bug : Myrran consumes 2 picks.

[myk002]

Thanks, Seravy! : ) I noticed that the file usually named WIZARDS.EXE is now named Wizards.exe, which causes issues for those who update the game on a case-sensitive file system. Linux Updaters: remember to manually delete the old WIZARDS.EXE so you don't have two conflicting files with the same name (from dosbox's perspective). Alternately, run

Code:

mv Wizards.exe WIZARDS.EXE

after updating to Caster562.

[Sapher]

A few bugs:
Possesion is not working (you can not cast it, but AI can).
Wind walking is broken (you can only carry a unit if it has some moves left. So a speed 4 air ship can only carry a hydra 2 spaces, hydra will not always have 0,5 moves as it was before).
If you equip a movement artifact on a hero you dont see speed increase in his info(it gives those moves, but info doesnt show that).
And a question: how can a ghoul with cloak of fear die to a hydra with 0 resist?

[Seravy]

Possession : confirmed, I haven't changed the spell though. Maybe one of Drake178's patches did this?
I'll investigate this immediately.
Wind Walking : It never worked on movement zero units. Windwalking is not transportation, it's an entirely different ability with different rules. The effect is "When a unit moves together with a windwalker, if the windwalker still has movement remaining, the units's movement can't drop below 0.5 if it would do so" vs transportation which does "units don't require or spend movement while being transported" instead. I agree this is not intuitive but considering the two abilities are entirely different in power level, I believe it's better to keep it that way.
Ghoul vs Hydra : According to the wiki, Fear only works on melee attacks, so the Hydra still gets to use Breath to do damage. (Thrown and gaze also ignore fear)

[Sapher]

When a unit moves together with a windwalker, if the windwalker still has movement remaining, the units's movement can't drop below 0.5 if it would do so

No, that's not how it is working now. It will drop to zero not to 0,5