Random questions COMII

[Seravy]

Do AIs trade spells with each other?

Yes.

what is the formula for hero cost please?

As far as I remember it always has been +33% cost per extra hero level.

[GMBarak]

what is the formula for hero cost please?

As far as I remember it always has been +33% cost per extra hero level.

but it's not only dependent on hero level, because I was offered The Assassin for 400 gold and thief for 500 gold and the Rogue for 250 gold, all level 0
can you tell us the formula with all factors combined?

[Seravy]

The only other modifier I can find in the source is the Charismatic retort.

[Fringe]

I've really enjoyed the new functionality to save locations to slots using ctrl+[0-9], thank you for adding it. I'd love to have 1 (or 0) automatically go to my Fortress city. Does that seem like a good idea, if it is possible?

[tehemperorer]

I've really enjoyed the new functionality to save locations to slots using ctrl+[0-9], thank you for adding it. I'd love to have 1 (or 0) automatically go to my Fortress city. Does that seem like a good idea, if it is possible?

Maybe spacebar like in Starcraft?

[tehemperorer]

Can I know why Armorer's Guild and Fantastic Stable were moved to require Tree of Knowledge, if the spell is going to be locked before 1505 anyway? I was under the assumption the Tree of Knowledge being a spell meant that it could be rushed, but apparently not.

Mainly because it's a more elegant and less immersion breaking solution that the building simply saying "you can't build this until year X". The spell does come earlier than the original date was (1406) but only about 10-15 turns earlier, I don't remember the exact amount.

Always struck me as odd to frame the 1406 solution as "not being elegant," since throughout history, in fiction and otherwise, better technology is always expected to become available later, so limiting advanced units to a timeline marker was perfectly acceptable. 

The new solution now gates advanced military units behind both Research and Power requirements and even still keeps the timeline requirement, so the change was IMO a pretty bad turn for the worse. That being said, all respect to the creators and contributors to whom I was quite happy handing over money :D 

Truth be told, with the Tree of Knowledge now the gateway to better units instead of time elapsed, not only do I have to build libraries and/or magic markets in lieu of combat units, but I also have to make sure that my currently researched spell will conclude at or around the same time as ToK comes available. That is kind of a big blow to rush strategies that involve summoned or advanced military units!

[Fringe]

I'm playing a game on Master difficulty and I observed a stack of 8 raider priests right next to an AI hamlet (pop 2) with 4 swordsmen defending it behind some walls. Instead of attacking the AI town, the priests moved towards one of my cities (pop 7), which was 5 squares (3 turns) away. It is defended by 6 units: 2 klackon halberdiers, an orc horde, a shaman, and a spearman; with city walls. Why didn't it attack the closer city which is more poorly defended?

[JustOneMoreTurn]

Raiders are generated for specific wizards. That batch was generated to attack your towns or units, so they'll ignore any other towns or units.

They also simple-mindedly attack your least defended town, so you can spoof them by moving a few units out of a more distant town. I think it would be better if they attacked the nearest town they have even a slight chance of defeating, perhaps with a random element so that you can't trust that they'll head for town x way across the map just because it has one less defender. I see the point of raiders as being justification for investments in garrisons, so even if the raiders just kill a few of your units if you're not well enough defended, it at least makes you think about your garrisons.

[Seravy]

Raiders are generated for specific wizards.  That batch was generated to attack your towns or units, so they'll ignore any other towns or units.

They also simple-mindedly attack your least defended town, so you can spoof them by moving a few units out of a more distant town.  I think it would be better if they attacked the nearest town they have even a slight chance of defeating, perhaps with a random element so that you can't trust that they'll head for town x way across the map just because it has one less defender.  I see the point of raiders as being justification for investments in garrisons, so even if the raiders just kill a few of your units if you're not well enough defended, it at least makes you think about your garrisons.

I'm not entirely sure but I think only monsters are wizard specific, the raiders might not be.
However the target isn't "simple minded" and is a formula that includes distance, and the ratio of total unit strength of the raider stack vs the enemy. Something like "up to 4 extra tiles allowed for each 25% of the Raider's stack strength in difference among the defending garrisons", exact numbers are of course different and probably are in the changelog somewhere.
In addition there is a bias towards the human player on the highest difficulty levels or at least was in the DOS version, Master most definitely included so I suspect that was the case in this particular scenario assuming this modifier still exists.
I vaguely remember there was also a minimal size restriction, so it's possible the pop 2 target was too small to get targeted.

[GMBarak]

1. Does illusion immunity prevents the 20% to hit loss from target invisibility?
2. Does insulation attribute block all armor piercing effects from attacks and spells? armor piercing weapons? armor piercing spells? blizzard spell? etc...
3. Why doesn't the AI requests peace or accepts peace even when it's clear it is losing the war? (for example lost half it's army/population since the start of the war?)
4. Does invulnerability block some of the supernatural damage? does it block bloodsucking? life steal?