Re-evaluating the Death Realm and the undead

[zitro1987]

Oops, I meant just the undead to be all 120xp 'elite' (therefore, not useful for undead heroes). Anything 'undead' is technically a zombie, so that sort of works as a stat boost itself.

With the slow healing, the 'create undead', and the possibility of an undecided stat/exp boost with zombie mastery, Black channels is not as much of a negative trade off anymore. I'm inclined to say it becoming overland-only as it would require good thinking skills for a player to determine whether the choice is favorable or not (and allows a great death-nature combo with regeneration)

[kyrub]

Oops, I meant just the undead to be all 120xp 'elite'

The trick is, quite a few undead units may be creatures who have no benefit from 120xp. Do Zombie or Werewolves units use experience boost? I do not think so. Should ZM somehow make them use experience? That seems a bit far-fetched plus creates a few subproblems, like what happens when ZM is dispelled.

I decided to have a quick look at the code. The problems surrounding ZM are much bigger than I thought. After the battle, a routine cycles through all units
a) checks if unit was killed mostly by lifestealing damage (which incl. Create Undead). =. revives as undead IF stack has <9 units
b) else checks if ZombieMastery = 1, checks if normal unit and dead, then revives the unit as zombie IF stack has <9 units
c) repeat for next unit

The problem is that with Zombie Mastery in effect, you may very well miss a powerful creature or a hero that should be revived as undead.
- if first few units are raised as Zombies (which could happen fairly often), they fill your stack to 9 units
- then another unit (maybe a creature) that should've been made undead, is skipped, since there's no more space in your stack.
That's pretty bad programming, if you ask me.

[Anthony]

Oops, I meant just the undead to be all 120xp 'elite'

The trick is, quite a few undead units may be creatures who have no benefit from 120xp. Do Zombie or Werewolves units use experience boost?

No, but the AI has been known to cast heroism on fantastic units, who are (completely inappropriately) affected, so it's possible to level-up fantastic units.

[kyrub]

No, but the AI has been known to cast heroism on fantastic units

Not in 1.40.

[Anthony]

No, but the AI has been known to cast heroism on fantastic units

Not in 1.40.

Yeah, but not really my point -- the fact that it happens in 1.3.1 tells us that fantastic units can be made elite, even if they don't do it in the normal way.

[zitro1987]

The trick is, quite a few undead units may be creatures who have no benefit from 120xp. Do Zombie or Werewolves units use experience boost? I do not think so. Should ZM somehow make them use experience? That seems a bit far-fetched plus creates a few subproblems, like what happens when ZM is dispelled.

I decided to have a quick look at the code. The problems surrounding ZM are much bigger than I thought. After the battle, a routine cycles through all units
a) checks if unit was killed mostly by lifestealing damage (which incl. Create Undead). =. revives as undead IF stack has <9 units
b) else checks if ZombieMastery = 1, checks if normal unit and dead, then revives the unit as zombie IF stack has <9 units
c) repeat for next unit

The problem is that with Zombie Mastery in effect, you may very well miss a powerful creature or a hero that should be revived as undead.
- if first few units are raised as Zombies (which could happen fairly often), they fill your stack to 9 units
- then another unit (maybe a creature) that should've been made undead, is skipped, since there's no more space in your stack.
That's pretty bad programming, if you ask me.

My intention is undead normal units with experience. However, given everything you mentioned the programming flaw with the 'zombie mastery' mechanic, I'm really concerned about how it would counter my proposal to expand the 'create undead' ability which would generally bring better units.

Back to the drawing board?

[Anthony]

A lot of the problem is the limit of 9. Perhaps the surplus units can be created in another square? There's logic (based on fleeing units) for units to wind up in another square after the battle if one is available, so that could be repurposed. I would use whatever square the winning army would have retreated to on a loss or timeout.

Incidentally, side point: this can't be allowed for heroes, but could the routine that creates undead also be hacked to work on enemy units that are under your control due to Animate Dead, Creature Binding, or Possession? I'd probably make them undead in the case of Possession, Creature Binding should actually just put it under your control.

[kyrub]

A lot of the problem is the limit of 9. Perhaps the surplus units can be created in another square?

Hmm, that would make ZM really powerful. A lot fo coding, I'm afraid.
I looked at the code again and I can repair the thing, going through all Create Undead first, then Zombification. So our plan stands as it is.

[Asfex]

it will a nice work, especially if we change the square for retreating to not-always-north-west.

[Tiltowait]

I believe it is a -3 diplomatic penalty for each black book, +3 for each white book. Red gets -2 and green gets +2(I think?). CCheckthe OSG. The reasoning seems clear, death is nobody's friend and chaos is just going to rain down destruction on everyone sooner or later. Meanwhile life and nature are have a good reputation for not causing death and destruction. Seems pretty clear to me, I hate running into chaos and death wizards. Nasty folk, those.