Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[shindrt]

AI is broken on CoM 6.01 from GOG. I attack a town, but the defending cavalry does not engage, they just scatter all over the map, wasting turns. They don't attack even when several enemy units surround my hero and can can easily slaughter him. Disaster. I attached a save before the attack.

[Seravy]

AI is broken on CoM 6.01 from GOG. I attack a town, but the defending cavalry does not engage, they just scatter all over the map, wasting turns. They don't attack even when several enemy units surround my hero and can can easily slaughter him. Disaster. I attached a save before the attack.

I fixed that like a whole month ago...but Slitherine hasn't published the updates ever since.
I recommend patching your game to 6.03 using this differential patch : https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid730163

This really is starting to get annoying, at this rate we're going to lose a lot of potential players.

PS : if all else fails, the bug only affects difficulty levels Fair and below so you can try playing on Advanced.

[MrBiscuits]

No, it's this thing : https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/foru...php?fid=53
It's basically a save game editor. Find the two islands and set their "owner" to -1.

Thanks that worked a treat, I had no idea about the tweaker up to now.

[mercy]

No, it's this thing : https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/foru...php?fid=53
It's basically a save game editor. Find the two islands and set their "owner" to -1.

Thanks that worked a treat, I had no idea about the tweaker up to now.

When the game finished creating the new world, I used MoMEdit1.3_v2 to check out, which enemy wizards I'll be going against. This editor is easiest to use, I didn't start setup, because it installs a complete mess of software I don't want: ==> I just picked MoMSaveEditor.exe_*** from the archive and renamed it to EXE and it works marvelously!

I noticed when I selected Rjak as a starting custom, I always had excellent evil enemies. But since I started selecting Freya as a starting custom wizard, I always got boring Merlin, Horus, Lo-Pan, Sss'ra as do-gooder peaceful, lawful wizards, which made the game extremely boring.   MEH!!!

So I didn't stop recreating the game, until I got my current awesome Jafar, Rjak, Sharee, Sss'ra all of them ruthless, evil megalomaniacs. :D  I'm with a custom Ariel currently and her trusty bug familiar... This makes the game so much fun on Lunatic!!  :D 

I realized I like Death-sorcery, chaos-nature or any combination with death most.

Taking the opponents cities also appears to switch on a brand new branch of AI code that I didn't experience before. :-o Enemy wizards revenge even more savagely, if I take their precious cities in AI-assigned locations.

Previously I just made a grid of the world by creating my own cities 4 spaces apart everywhere. But taking enemy cities appears to anger enemy wizards way-way more and kicks in amazing new AI-tactics.

At least it appears so, that this 'take-their-cities'-tactics made my latest game awesome fun!  :D

[WhiteMage]

Great game. I played 6.01 on Steam. Bugs/feature requests:
 
Heavenly Light on overland map called Holy Light in battle. Should be consistent. Text also different: produces 3 power or not?           
 
Halfling apparently cannot build Animist Guild. But Halfling description says that they can build all non-military buildings.        
 
Alchemy UI should never offer odd number of gold being turned into mana.         
 
Barbarian Swordsmen are listed as Forester and Mountaineer in city production. But in battle they are shown as pathfinding. Change display to pathfinding to make it consistent.     
 
Not clear how ranged magic works. What is the difference from normal bow ranged damage? It should be written if right clicked.       
 
Water Walking should change the walking icon to water on normal units in battle if we hover over.        
 
Not clear if Thrown weapon is applied when defending in melee. Also not clear if this is in addition to melee attack displayed or part of it. Explain this with right click on this icon.         
 
Not clear if First Strike is applied when defending in melee. Also not clear if this is in addition to melee attack displayed or part of it. Explain this with right click on this icon.    
 
Make range penalty more gradual. 2.5% decrease with each extra square distance.          
 
Some settlers had major production cost discount. But it was unclear why. Barbarian 80/150, Lizardmen 120/150. Other units and buildings did not have discount. Add description to explain in game by right click. Is this for starting neutral cities for some reason?  
 
Arrow x6 is not displayed for Javelineers in city production, but in battle. Add it.   
 
In battle if there is not enough mana or skill for main Wizard to cast spell then do not offer it to choose the Wizard to cast spell and get message that it cannot. Instead, keep Spell button unclickable. If unit can cast spell too then automatically choose the unit to cast and don't offer the Wizard.

[Seravy]

Heavenly Light on overland map called Holy Light in battle. Should be consistent. Text also different: produces 3 power or not?  

Fixed the name. Power production isn't relevant information in battle anyway.

Halfling apparently cannot build Animist Guild. But Halfling description says that they can build all non-military buildings.      

There is no space in the description left to add that.
Halfling farmers produce food as though they already had an Animist's Guild built at all times, which is shows as "3 food / farmer"

Alchemy UI should never offer odd number of gold being turned into mana.

Agreed. I'll check if I can change it.

Barbarian Swordsmen are listed as Forester and Mountaineer in city production. But in battle they are shown as pathfinding. Change display to pathfinding to make it consistent.  
Arrow x6 is not displayed for Javelineers in city production, but in battle. Add it.  

The unit production screen uses a different display function which causes these inconsistencies. Changing it is very difficult and time consuming, unfortunately I can't fix them.

Not clear how ranged magic works. What is the difference from normal bow ranged damage? It should be written if right clicked.  

Added range penalty not applying to magical attacks. That's the only difference.

Not clear if Thrown weapon is applied when defending in melee. Also not clear if this is in addition to melee attack displayed or part of it. Explain this with right click on this icon.
Not clear if First Strike is applied when defending in melee. Also not clear if this is in addition to melee attack displayed or part of it. Explain this with right click on this icon.  

Added.

Make range penalty more gradual. 2.5% decrease with each extra square distance.

That makes it harder to calculate for the player. I prefer not to.

Some settlers had major production cost discount. But it was unclear why. Barbarian 80/150, Lizardmen 120/150. Other units and buildings did not have discount. Add description to explain in game by right click. Is this for starting neutral cities for some reason?  

Settler costs are different for some races. The game documentation should mention it where it's not the default 150 cost. There is no room to include this information ingame.

[WhiteMage]

Seravy: "There is no space in the description left to add that."
There is pure decorative information now. For example: “open-minded and curious” and “which makes them harder to kill” are cool, but have little if any functional value. I would replace that. IMO not displaying plain wrong info is more important than style.
 
Seravy: "Added range penalty not applying to magical attacks."
Can you add it? It would help the user.
 
Seravy: "That makes it harder to calculate for the player."
IMO, calculating every time if it is 8 vs 9 range or 12 vs 13 range for the huge step function to apply is harder than a simple linear rule where 1 step closer is better by same amount.
 
Seravy: "Settler costs are different for some races. The game documentation should mention it where it's not the default 150 cost. There is no room to include this information ingame."
Why not just modify the default cost like you already did for everything else?

[Seravy]

Seravy: "Settler costs are different for some races. The game documentation should mention it where it's not the default 150 cost. There is no room to include this information ingame."
Why not just modify the default cost like you already did for everything else?

Most races use the same settler unit, this is why adding more units was possible.

[WhiteMage]

About 25 years ago I developed pseudocode to play Random MoM games. I was playing with it ever since. It worked well and it made my games more fun, more diverse, more unique, and more challenging. Today I modified it to match Caster of Magic and I am playing by it. It would be great if you would integrate into the game so with a click of a button players can get a random game. May I share my pseudocode here for possible implementation? Alternatively, any player interested in it to make your own games before it gets coded into CoM?

[Seravy]

You mean a random game generator?
There is one included but it's not integrated into the game, you run it from DOS, it tells you the random settings and you select them manually.
Of course you can share yours! Whether I want to include it or not I can only say after seeing it though.