Caster of Magic II Bug Reports!

[jhsidi]

Could game generation have a toggle for land:ocean ratio?

Currently it seems like this can't be affected, and ocean covers huge swathes of the world. That seems like a big change from MoM, where IIRC an increase to the land size decreased the amount of ocean (since map sizes didn't change).

There are a few reasons I'd prefer less ocean:

• I like to seek treasure, but it takes so long to journey to the more distant islands and continents that it's absolutely certain the treasure sites and nodes will be taken by the time I get there.
  
• For me, scouting out the oceans is boring, traveling across them with a stack that's actually useful is even worse.
  
• I'd like to have a lot of wizards competing in close proximity. In reality, I just have one or two nearby.
  

Some people probably do like the feeling of traveling over huge oceans, hence the suggestion of a toggle.

[jhsidi]

OK, one more problem keeping me from starting a new game -- when I do start a game, from a fresh install of CoM2, I start with a full spellbook with what looks like every spell in the game researched. Maybe you left a testing option on?

[Seravy]

Could game generation have a toggle for land:ocean ratio?

Currently it seems like this can't be affected, and ocean covers huge swathes of the world.

Intentional.

Basically your list is a perfect example of things that break the game :

I'd like to have a lot of wizards competing in close proximity. In reality, I just have one or two nearby.

AI wizards are mostly helpless and weak in the first 30-70 turns. While CoM II AI puts more effort into defending newly founded outposts, there is a limit to how effective that can be (would 4 hell hounds really stop a real army? Of course not.) and basically, any AI wizard who loses their initial 2-3 outposts/hamlets is pretty much out of the game.
So if all wizards start near you, all you need is 2-3 armies that can easily wipe those early cities out and you can steamroll all other wizards with that.

Also, our assumption that AI trade and treaty unbalance resulting from more players can be kept under control is based on the fact the AI's don't meet with too many other AIs too early and actually put effort into not going too far unless they have nothing to fight nearby.

Let's assume every AI meets every other AI at the beginning of the game. 6 of those have personalities that are friendly. 6 of them don't. The first 6 will form an alliance, trade a lot, and destroy the other 6 quickly who are not allied and are weakened from fighting each other as well as the first 6. Then you, as the human player, has to fight that alliance of 6 players with a massive spell advantage from trading. I don't even call that playable.

For me, scouting out the oceans is boring, traveling across them with a stack that's actually useful is even worse.

That's a key sentence. If the "useful stack" can conquer more things that means it has a better return on investment, for example 1 stack conquers 2 things instead of 1 in the same amount of time. That means compared to all other strategies, those that involve said "useful stacks" capable of fighting 2 times as much if allowed, will see a 100% increase in efficiency on those maps without the travel distances.
Considering stacks that take no damage and can fight any amount of enemies as long as they can reach them is already atop tier strategy, we absolutely shouldn't make it 100% more powerful. (100% is a random example, it might be more or less but it's a large enough difference.)

I like to seek treasure, but it takes so long to journey to the more distant islands and continents that it's absolutely certain the treasure sites and nodes will be taken by the time I get there.

Same here. If you collect the same treasure in half as much time then you are winning the game 100% more efficiently (assuming treasure is your main strategy).

...wait, I'm pretty sure this was already discussed before. Maybe even more than once.

OK, one more problem keeping me from starting a new game -- when I do start a game, from a fresh install of CoM2, I start with a full spellbook with what looks like every spell in the game researched. Maybe you left a testing option on?

Yes, exactly that. I guess it doesn't hurt to have that stay on for a day, we might see more bugs reported that way.

[Seravy]

Actually now that we have the score modifier options, the "less ocean" option could be added there along the other things that mess with game balance but are desired by some players.
Problem is the AI issues, I mean the alliances and trading and the possibility of many AI's eliminating each other due to having no distance between each other. Then again that might offset the otherwise reduced difficulty due to massively better early snowballing potential.
I'm not sure what a fair score modifier for that could be though, maybe 0.5x?

[jhsidi]

Bug: endless loop range check error on finishing research of Philosopher's Stone. File: https://ufile.io/mu6rybhc

[jhsidi]

So if all wizards start near you, all you need is 2-3 armies that can easily wipe those early cities out and you can steamroll all other wizards with that.

Also, our assumption that AI trade and treaty unbalance resulting from more players can be kept under control is based on the fact the AI's don't meet with too many other AIs too early and actually put effort into not going too far unless they have nothing to fight nearby.

Let's assume every AI meets every other AI at the beginning of the game. 6 of those have personalities that are friendly. 6 of them don't. The first 6 will form an alliance, trade a lot, and destroy the other 6 quickly who are not allied and are weakened from fighting each other as well as the first 6. Then you, as the human player, has to fight that alliance of 6 players with a massive spell advantage from trading. I don't even call that playable.

Some assumptions here:

• All players always choose 13 opponents. If that's the expected setup, why offer alternatives? It is quite reasonable to play with, say, 7 opponents, and some will be on Myrror. In which case, even with smaller oceans, the wizards will be spread out anyway. These maps are really quite large.
  
• That, if there are 13 opponents, it's breaking the game to take some out of the running within the first 30-70 turns. Why? Not that it matters right now anyway -- I'm seeing raiders and other wizards taking out opponents around this time anyway, regardless of distancing.
  
• That smaller oceans = no barriers and immediate access to other wizards. That's not the case in Master of Magic. Early on, particularly before you have flying / 3+ move units, you're really not buzzing around the world. Even in a MoM size map it takes time and planning to spread out over the whole map, and even oceans that are just 3-6 tiles wide are a significant barrier.
  
• That the player is the one who has the advantage from being close to the other wizards. This is an AI and difficulty level problem, physical distance is just an inhibitor.
  

Maybe you've done a lot more testing and proven all this stuff, but I'm not sure how with the game just entering a playable state? I don't know how difficult it is to tweak the map generation, but if it's a fairly quick edit to have something even semi-broken available, I'd be happy to test and see how it works out. (I say semi-broken because I don't think something like the Maximal size map with very little ocean would be a reasonable game, but I really think it could be fun at Small map size.)

[jhsidi]

Bugs: 

• The Vampiric property on a weapon insta-kills enemies and gives something like 30 overhealth. Maybe the save value is wrong? To test, take Theria out of the stack and go fight the nagas south of her: https://ufile.io/l1h5vtpb
  
• The Discipline enchantment doesn't show up on the unit card although it's in effect
  
• In character generation, I can't right click the Nature spell Planetary Mastery to see what it does.
  
• The spell info for Vampire doesn't show cost / maintenance (you can test this on the same file from above)
  
• If you go into the Apprentice version of the spellbook and page forward repeatedly, when you reach the last page and still try to go to next page, there's an endless loop range check error (same file)
  

This is all from yesterday's version of the game, hopefully the save files are compatible. If not, I think those will all be replicable even in another game.

[Seravy]

All players always choose 13 opponents. If that's the expected setup, why offer alternatives? It is quite reasonable to play with, say, 7 opponents, and some will be on Myrror. In which case, even with smaller oceans, the wizards will be spread out anyway. These maps are really quite large.

Except, the map size depends on the number of players. So this is only true if they pick 7 players AND raise the land to Huge.

That, if there are 13 opponents, it's breaking the game to take some out of the running within the first 30-70 turns. Why? Not that it matters right now anyway -- I'm seeing raiders and other wizards taking out opponents around this time anyway, regardless of distancing.

No, what's breaking the game is the AI's who eliminated the others get that much stronger. Once you have an AI who cannibalized 2-3 others, there is no stopping it as long as they keep declaring wars on the rest and with that many, this is a much more likely scenario.
What's also breaking the game is if these AI's are not eliminated but a significant number of them lose their starting settlements but fortunately that isn't going to happen as razing isn't an option anymore.

Maybe you've done a lot more testing and proven all this stuff, but I'm not sure how with the game just entering a playable state?

No, these are all assumptions.

I don't know how difficult it is to tweak the map generation, but if it's a fairly quick edit to have something even semi-broken available, I'd be happy to test and see how it works out.

It's trivial to do, fortunately, if we add it to the "scoring options " section. It does change the save files though as it's a new option that needs to be saved.

The Discipline enchantment doesn't show up on the unit card although it's in effect

Added that to the "missing art" list.

[Seravy]

Bug: endless loop range check error on finishing research of Philosopher's Stone. File: https://ufile.io/mu6rybhc

It's the usual "description too log" bug. Strange, I added all spells yesterday and had no bug.
...it's the difference of width between fonts, the encrypted text is longer. In particular the space character width wasn't set properly on it.

The Vampiric property on a weapon insta-kills enemies and gives something like 30 overhealth. Maybe the save value is wrong? To test, take Theria out of the stack and go fight the nagas south of her:

Wrong save file, it's turn 5 so you have no hero or item.

If you go into the Apprentice version of the spellbook and page forward repeatedly, when you reach the last page and still try to go to next page, there's an endless loop range check error (same file)

Couldn't reproduce. I assume your page after the "last" had the spell with the too long description bug.

[Seravy]

2020-09-05
-Fixed bug : Space character width for encrypted small font is 3 instead of 1, causing range check errors.
-Fixed bug : Save files can't be loaded after renaming them
-Fixed bug : The save modifier of touch attacks is merged wrong from equipment.
-Fixed bug : Planetary Mastery help text doesn't open
-Added the frames for hero portraits
-Fixed bug : The Myrran plane had lairs on the south pole.
-Added game option : Plane of Earth - ocean to land ratio is roughly halved.
-Added game option : Leave me Alone - The AI cannot build cities within a radius of 6 around the human player's cities.
-Added game option : Sandbox Play - The AI cannot declare war or turn hostile towards the human player unless provoked.
-Added missing feature : on Easy difficulty the AI cannot be Maniacal or Chaotic.
-Added game option : Order Please - The AI cannot be chaotic.
-Added game option : Smart Familiar - when attacking lairs/nodes/etc, the player is given a prediction of the battle outcome generated by calculating the outcome using automatic combat.
-Neutral stacks will now consider cities that have a wall and a flying defender an invalid target if the neutral stack doesn't have at least one flying, noncorporeal, wallcrusher, teleporting or merging unit.
(note : the new options mean previous saves are not compatible.)