Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Seravy]

“That would be difficult to add.” Then Add it to Create Outpost text of Settlers that they can’t build on the Arctic and Antarctic continents.

Added.

Change text to multiplicative halved effect.

Done. Surprised cumulative doesn't mean "second or later effect isn't discarded" though, I assumed "additive" is the word that means addition specifically.

Text says “city generates 4 research per turn regardless of the presence of research producing buildings. This suggests that if I build Library, then it does not generate any research. Simply drop text: “regardless of the presence of research producing buildings”

Fixed, by replacing with "and adds 4 city research".

For Flame Blade, I think you mean it increases the strength of melee attacks by 3 and missile attacks by 2 if it is already >0. It would be better to add this to the text. Currently confusing.

None of the spells in the game can increase the strength of attacks a unit does not have. It's common sense though, you can't increase something that doesn't exist. This feature also applies to melee attacks (Settlers or Catapults don't have one) although there are a few exceptions that probably weren't fixed yet like adamantium settlers having a strength 2 attack. I prefer not to mess with that until CoM II as it's not relevant to gameplay.

is it possible that a catapult’s melee is >0? If impossible, then it would be better to display To Hit, since that is already used by other units. Usability, simplicity, clarify.

I'm surprised this doesn't work like that, I thought magic weapons apply to the unit even if the melee strength is zero. There really is no reason why they shouldn't. Does this affect all catapults or only summoned ones?

Plane Shift text says “Target: one stack”. But it requires casting it on friendly unit. This is a mismatch. I think it would be better to allow casting it on any stack. E.g. it helps vs neutrals. But if you disagree, then fix the text to match the spell.

Fixed text.
Targeting enemies would be an interesting feature but overall horrible for gameplay. Depending on the AI, one of the following two could happen :
-The stack is stuck on the other plane so you can literally be invincible as long as you keep casting it to expel enemy stacks from your territory. This would be a lot more powerful than Stasis as the enemy isn't coming back, it's pretty much entirely gone unless you're already conquering the other plane.
-The AI remembers what happened and immediately casts Plane Shift to put their units back where they were. In this case the player can prevent the AI from casting other spells as long as they have enough casting skill to cast at least as many Plane Shifts as the AI can.
Either way it breaks the game.

Create Artifact Spell Save does not scale in an intuitive way. It costs +200 +300, +500, +500 on previous level. Why not +300, +400, +500?

It's 200,500,1000,1500 though. The documentation seems to be correct.
Oh you mean the difference. So 200,500,900,1400 instead? That could be done but I don't see a reason for it. -3 save for 1000 is already a bit undercosted I think.

“Allows unit and all stacked with it to fly.”

It says
"“Allows unit and all stacked with it to fly on the overworld map.”
Oh, one of the 3 identical texts was missing that part, fixed.

Add to Non Corporeal that Create Undead does not work on them.

It already seems to be there. "Non-Corporeal units don't turn to undead from undead creating damage".

Wind Walking Hero had +2 movement artifact. It made walking units gain the +2 movement too on the overland map. Even those it picked up along the way. I guess it is intended feature. If yes, then add to Wind Walking text that the whole stack moves with the speed of the Wind Walker unit.

Yes, it is, always has been. I'm surprised the spell description doesn't contain that.

Non Corporeal unit should be able to initiate melee attack on flying unit.

That would be a major rule change. It makes Death the most effective at countering flying enemies at the common tier (with Wraithform) which is completely unintended. I'm strongly against this idea. Wraith Form is already an above average spell that offers a lot of good effects. (Weapon Immunity, counters Weapon Immunity, counters Web, counters Crack's Call, counters being turned to undead, ignore terrain in combat, ignore terrain overland, ignore walls)

[MrBiscuits]

I don't think the reduction in spell costs is working correctly. I have 10 death books and specialist and the possession spell costs me 28 reduced from 30, so around 6% reduction.
I would expect the 12% reduction from specialist and two 5% reductions on top (is it additive?).

Other spells seem reduced less than they should be too.

There's no divine order cast.

[Seravy]

Possession's cost was incorrectly listed in the ingame help - it costs 35. It's fixed for the next version.

[WhiteMage]

“None of the spells in the game can increase the strength of attacks a unit does not have. It's common sense though, you can't increase something that doesn't exist. This feature also applies to melee attacks (Settlers or Catapults don't have one) although there are a few exceptions that probably weren't fixed yet like adamantium settlers having a strength 2 attack. I prefer not to mess with that until CoM II as it's not relevant to gameplay.”
Common sense is different for different people. For me, it was confusing, but I guessed that increase applies to 0. So I see it relevant for user’s understanding of the rules. All I am suggesting is changing text to lower player confusion. Understanding rules is super important in this game.

“Does this affect all catapults or only summoned ones?” Death catapults and Summoned catapults display +2 To Hit and +1 To Range. Built catapults only display +2 To Hit . Again, I am only suggesting changing text to clarify and simplify the game rules for the sake of all players. These are not just for me personally. But I did have great difficulty understanding this and many other displayed texts and rules even I played this game for decades.

“The stack is stuck on the other plane so you can literally be invincible as long as you keep casting it to expel enemy stacks from your territory. This would be a lot more powerful than Stasis as the enemy isn't coming back, it's pretty much entirely gone unless you're already conquering the other plane.”
If the AI plays well and is in stronger position than you then it can come back with same spell. They can also come back through 1 of 9 towers. But I understand that the AI does not play well. So your point is well taken based on how the current AI was coded.
To tune this spell, maybe some kind of resistance check can be made for each unit in the stack if it works on them. For example, each unit in the stack tries to save at -7. Only those units go to other plane from the stack that failed the resistance. And as before, the target map square must be valid, so no new battle this way, ground type must be valid, etc. And maybe increase the casting cost too.
I would also not be invincible since Plane Shift is insanely strong and cheap now. They Bring 9 units of any kind to almost anywhere in the map without advanced warning and attack in same turn. How to defend against that? This is a very strong attacker spell. The defense version I suggest is weaker use of same spell.

“-The AI remembers what happened and immediately casts Plane Shift to put their units back where they were. In this case the player can prevent the AI from casting other spells as long as they have enough casting skill to cast at least as many Plane Shifts as the AI can.” Yeah. Pure AI weakness. My proposed rule would work well with a strong AI.

“It's 200,500,1000,1500 though. The documentation seems to be correct.” I am talking about intuitive.  200-0=200, 500-200=300, 1000-500=500, 1500-1000=500

“Oh you mean the difference. So 200,500,900,1400 instead? That could be done but I don't see a reason for it. -3 save for 1000 is already a bit undercosted I think.”
If undercosted then maybe tune to 250, 600, 1050, 1600. Keep the intuitive feeling well, so players will understand, remember, and plan for it.

“"“Allows unit and all stacked with it to fly on the overworld map.”
Oh, one of the 3 identical texts was missing that part, fixed.”
It does not say it now. Thanks for fixing it.

“It already seems to be there. "Non-Corporeal units don't turn to undead from undead creating damage".”
Where does it say that? I can’t find it. For example, Magic Spirit has Non Corporeal. I right click it. Full text of that is “Non-corporeal allows the unit to pass through any land square at a cost of 1 movement point, and allows it to move through walls unimpeded.” 
I also checked Create Undead for Ghouls and that text also does not say it.
Add it to both Non Corporeal and to Create Undead text.

“I'm surprised the spell description doesn't contain that.” For Wind Walker hero it is a skill, not a spell. I am asking to add to that if right clicked. But spell should say it too.

“That would be a major rule change.” OK, I understand your point on ground of existing game balance. I agree not to change it now. But in this case, why does Flying Fortress have this text: “Allows the target city and all units defending it to fly. Only flying, non-corporeal and teleporting units may enter the city tiles during combat.”? Non-corporeal can enter flying city? They can fly now? Then they can stand there and spectate the battle around them not able to initiate melee since all defenders fly?

[Seravy]

Again, I am only suggesting changing text to clarify and simplify the game rules for the sake of all players.

Those display the contents of the To Hit and To Range variables of the unit. It's not a text change. If it displays To Range that means the unit actually has the To Range stat instead of the To Hit stat for some reason.

I looked at the code and the weapon bonus does not apply to melee if the melee is zero. This includes both the hit chance, and the attack bonus (0 for magic, 1 for mithril and 2 for adamantium).
As a consequence, it will display To Range because the melee hit bonus is not included.

This can be "fixed" by applying the melee hit bonus to units that have zero melee strength but then the problem will be the unit with zero strength displaying "+1 To Melee" even though it has no melee attack on settlers or other units that cannot shoot.
As it's wrong either way, I prefer not to change it.

CoM II will not have this problem as it'll display the sum of the relevant hit chances instead.
So a +2 To Hit, +1 To Range unit will show "50% melee hit, 60% ranged hit".

To tune this spell, maybe some kind of resistance check can be made for each unit in the stack if it works on them. For example, each unit in the stack tries to save at -10. Only those units go to other plane from the stack that failed the resistance. And as before, the target map square must be valid, so no new battle this way, ground type must be valid, etc. And maybe increase the casting cost too.

That's even worse, as that breaks the stack up so you can easily kill each half separately.
Also the AI can abuse the spell just the same as the player. They see your stack coming near their territory, they send it to the other plane. And now you can't shift back because you are casting a longer spell. Not fun and makes casting any spell that takes over a turn a major strategic disadvantage.

If undercosted then maybe tune to 250, 600, 1050, 1600. Keep the intuitive feeling well, so players will and understand, remember, and plan for it.

Each level costing a multiply of 500 (except the first) is much more intuitive and easy to remember. This is subjective and not a valid reason to make gameplay changes.

Where does it say that? I can’t find it. For example, Magic Spirit has Non Corporeal. I right click it. Full text of that is “Non-corporeal allows the unit to pass through any land square at a cost of 1 movement point, and allows it to move through walls unimpeded.”

Oh, there was an "end text" character in the middle of the Noncoporeal help entry so it wasn't displayed. Fixed.

Only flying, non-corporeal and teleporting units may enter the city tiles during combat.”? Non-corporeal can enter flying city? They can fly now? Then they can stand there and spectate the battle around them not able to initiate melee since all defenders fly?

That's somewhat inconsistent, assuming it really works that way. I'm not going to change the effect (due to the high risk of error) but I will fix the text if it doesn't actually do that, please test and let me know. It seems the CoM II code I made based on reading the CoM asm files doesn't seem to contain Non-Coporeal as an exception so there is a high chance the text is wrong.

[WhiteMage]

“If it displays To Range that means the unit actually has the To Range stat instead of the To Hit stat for some reason.”
I understand. But if the unit has Melee=0 then +1 To Hit and +1 Range mean the exact same thing. Right? If yes, then what is the point displaying a Catapult that has +2 To Hit and +1 To Range in the same time? Why confuse the user with this? To make it worse, +1 To Hit and +1 To Range cannot be clicked to read about them.
 
“As a consequence, it will display To Range because the melee hit bonus is not included.” OK, I understand. So for existing technical reasons you prefer not to change it.
 
“That's even worse, as that breaks the stack up so you can easily kill each half separately.” It could be tuned to make it interesting. Make the spell expensive to cast. It can become a strategy. This game is full of these kind of things anyway. But OK. Maybe batter to make it all or nothing. Only the strongest resistance unit in the stack rolls to save the stack. The rest of the stack comes with it or stays.

“Each level costing a multiply of 500 (except the first) is much more intuitive and easy to remember. This is subjective and not a valid reason to make gameplay changes.”
I think it is objective too in addition to being subjective. For example, look at the original MOM’s Create Artifact cost increase formulas. They were almost always tuned based on my proposed gradually increasing cost for adding one more of the same kind of performance. Added costs difference from previous increase for +1 increase of Attack, Defense, and Resistance were: +25, +50, +75, +100, +125. For Movement and Spell Save: +50, +100, +200. For Spell Skill: +100, +200, +400. See the pattern?
But more importantly, the objective reason is that Spell Save and any number based addition cost to an item should gradually increase as you put in more performance, since it drastically increases the battle performance and hence the probability that an action will work (say cast Confusion or Petrify) and hence the battle outcome (win or lose). Plus a hero can only have 3 artifacts. So the hero slots are limited. Need to squeeze out performance of those limited slots. Motivation is huge to put in max. Decision is a no brainer. Except, the only reason to put in anything less than maximum performance into an artifact you make is that you can’t afford it due to its cost. With increased cost of each additional +1 performance the choice becomes harder & more interesting, the game becomes deeper, and the middle options become more relevant to consider. The original MOM designers understood and tuned their formulas according to this principle and I agree with them. Sure, the costs can be tuned better, but the gradually increasing cost idea was brilliant from them that made MOM such a great game in spite of its thousands of bugs and other problems that you did a great job fixing to bring up this game to what the original designers had in mind, but were unable to achieve.

[Seravy]

Right? If yes, then what is the point displaying a Catapult that has +2 To Hit and +1 To Range in the same time?

If I have A=2 and B=1 and the code does
write(A)
write(B)
then that's what's going to happen. I'm not doing that to troll the users. As I explained, we need to change the way A and B are calculated if we want A to be 3 and B to be 0 in this case, but that comes with other problems.

It cannot be clicked because this information wasn't originally available at all so it has no help entry clickarea or text associated.

Make the spell expensive to cast.

That makes the original intended purpose (the AI sending their troops to your plane) function less effectively.

I rather make it a new spell "Expel Forces" that specifically target enemies and keep Plane Shift as is, if we want that new spell, but so far I'm 99% sure we don't.


Patterns are not important though, what's important is which number is best for gameplay. Also don't forget that Spell Save -1 is available for accessories, but -2 or more is limited to staves/wands only.

In CoM II the item costs will be scaled by the total amount of powers included, see below :
   
   
Obviously, adding this system to CoM I would be too difficult, unfortunately.

[JohanKramer]

Hello all!
Great job with reviving MoM Seravy!
In fantasy settings I like necromancy so I've tried to craft a necromancy artifact, but I'm really disappointed. I've registered to give my thoughts, hopefully I'm not out of my place.

I see that it was already discussed:

Necromancy isn't that great but we found no better solution. Raising enemy units is too powerful. Summoning in combat is already covered by Pandora's Box, having two abilities doing that is not necessary.

I've played a game recently where I made an artifact with two charges of Syphon Life. Throughout the course of the game that artifact gave my hero at least 10 bonus life in every fight and two undead servants of my own choice at the end of the battle. Similar in cost to Necromancy, but a lot more powerful. Zombie Mastery is another example, for just another 100 mana the effect happens globally and revives enemy units. The Death realm has so many good options for raising undead that Necromancy has to do something really special to be worth the high cost. My heroes are usually travelling with a pack of undead in games where I focus on Death magic, so the odds of this power actually reviving something are quite low.

As more comparison: why would I do an artifact that lets me reanimated only my troops - seriously limiting for a mostly death wizard - when I could do for the same research and casting cost:
a. death mastery:
--: does zombies
++: works EVERYWHERE not only when the hero is
++: works on enemy fallen units
++: doesn't require me to keep a hero alive - with mostly death books I won't ever use my hero against say, chaos AI
b. 2 wraiths:
-: not own units
-: not consistent
++: works on enemy fallen units
++: doesn't require me to keep a hero alive

The main issue is that by this time in the game, I don't want to lose units, so I'm doing my best to not use this item power.
Conversely, at the beginning I don't mind losing lots of units, especially normal ones. This gave me an idea for a proposal.

+ Make it cheaper, craft item - 250? - let people use it early.
- Introduce very harsh limits, for example, make the cost of raised troops depend on wizard's skill and number of death books. And perhaps even the hero's mana? Making it caster heroes only?
+ Make it better for the wizards that this ability is meant for, by making it cumulative: additive if a hero has more necro items, and if more heroes in the same battle have it

In this way, it is of very limited use for other wizards that find it randomly in the treasure - I've seen that that's your main worry searching the forum - but it can be used early, which is when a death player wants to use it. By the time I have rares I'll want to create undead from my enemies, not my own troops, unless I have a dedicated strategy, then I have crafted several items of it, reaching the current situation. It becomes more useful the more times you have it, meaning that random findings in treasure are not so useful.

As a further limitation you could split this in 2, an item version - minor necromancy - that only revives as skeletons, and an artifact version that revives as the original unit.

As an aside - not part of the idea - if I want to undead my own troops I have bloodlust so there's kind of an overlap. Maybe let it work on enemy troops but only as skeletons?

[Seravy]

I'm afraid the cost of 250 would be far too low as this power literally refunds the spent casting skill in form of revived creatures. Losing 3 Ghouls is enough to let the item pay for itself and beyond that you get free profit for the rest of the game. Such a major bonus that early would snowball massively. The spell equivalent, Animate Dead, is very rare, and while that does allow you to produce the new unit during combat, you do pay a combat casting cost for that part of the effect. If we only look at the overland long term benefit, Necormancy and Animate Dead are identical : you can use each of your units as if they were two of the same unit (and the second one gets slightly buffed).
...although it isn't without risk - if you don't lose enough units or don't lose them in small enough quantities per battle, or the hero dies, the casting cost can go to waste. So maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea afterall?

Zombie Mastery and Wraiths serve a completely different purpose, making a large amount of weak units, while Animate Dead and Necromancy gives you the ability to use your best units twice.

If you can win battles without losing any units consistently, you've already won the game and don't need anything in particular to help with that anymore. In that situation, any item power would seem unnecessary.

I think the greater problem with Necromancy is that in Death you most likely will lose the heroes before those good units it could revive beyond the midgame, so you need to play a Hero strategy to keep them alive, but if you do play a hero strategy then you don't need your nonhero units... And while Death has a hard time keeping heroes alive, this would be no different in any realm - if you can make heroes that don't die in battle, it's easier to use the heroes to win instead of relying on other units and bringing them back to life.
That's mostly due to other game mechanics though - you can expand quickly and raze everything so heroes can win games without any need for other armies. I think in CoM II this item power will be much more useful as you will want those other units to hold the territory even if the hero could conquer it alone, thanks to the slower razing and larger maximal map size with more opponents.

So yes, I think the core problem here is, if a hero at the rare spell tier is strong enough to survive, you have little use for reviving units anymore, or anything else beyond making that hero even more powerful.

[JohanKramer]

Thanks for answering!

Exactly, at that point I'd rather cast other spells. The examples I brought up, yes, are different - more useful. I guess that what I tried to describe is the situation where I literally don't want to use the power offered by this super expensive item. That's hardly a bargain, for such a price. What I am feeling in my game, at each battle, is: I wish I had this on turn 40.

The item repaying its skill cost in avoided losses: doesn't that happen with every defensive item? Healing cap charges are better as that also lets the unit keep fighting! Silly example to say, you can tweak the numbers to make it comparable. Example: if you make its reanimation cap at say, 10/death spellbook you aren't even reanimating a ghoul without 9 death. (does the cost reduction for spellbooks or specialist apply btw?)
But, you'll reanimate cavalry and swordsmen, to avoid losing momentum with the hero. That's comparable to crafting a defensive item that avoids that you lose momentum by avoiding hits. If it costs 233, then you can craft the item 3 times for the current price and, if the same hero wears the triple set, it reanimates 30/death SB.
The cap could be additive, so add something for hero MPs, something for hero level and something for each wizard death book. That would prevent the cap going too high. Something like: 5/death SB+half the hero's mana+5/hero level? That seems already harsh but, if that sounds so harsh as to be useless please consider that I'd rather use that than the current...

Anyway, just examples of course, my idea is: this is useful at the beginning not at rares.