Caster of Magic II Brainstorming Megathread

[Tleilaxu Ghola]

Maybe heavily guarded "entrances" to other smaller realms then, not an entire 'plane' per se, but more like an Underdark mini realm or mini-map that would offer unique treasures/resources. Make them tough to get to like harder nodes, or only accessible by sea, air, cave, Hero/Champion. race specific, etc. Or less hard to get to, but not worth it without preparing a proper stack or a Wizard ..there are lots of ways to make keys for stuff..;-} .

I was sort of thinking about it a little, and you could, for example, severely penalize flying units in the underground setting because they can't really fly, but dark elves or Dwarves would be able to move without rescitction. Sort of like a Baldur's Gate side quest, but fitting to MoM and it's game play. Like conquering a tough lair only to find a hidden entrance rather than JUST a spell or item if you get what I am saying.

[Seravy]

That sounds interesting but the system doesn't support more than 2 maps at the moment and changing that would be quite time consuming and difficult, not to mention that new area would need its own functions to generate art for all terrain types. Overall, it's not worth the time.
Penalizing unit types is a definite no because the AI can't make conscious decisions about unit types to use when building stacks or sending them to areas.

[Anskiy]

Penalizing unit types is a definite no because the AI can't make conscious decisions about unit types to use when building stacks or sending them to areas.

Why not, would it be too complicated to code up AI branches for that? I think it would be worth teaching it to make stacks for specific situations, it could improve combat considerably and add some real mind gaming.

[Seravy]

Penalizing unit types is a definite no because the AI can't make conscious decisions about unit types to use when building stacks or sending them to areas.

Why not, would it be too complicated to code up AI branches for that? I think it would be worth teaching it to make stacks for specific situations, it could improve combat considerably and add some real mind gaming.

Stackbuilding is complicated even as is because the AI has to consistently pick the same units over the course of multiple turns for a stack, even if circumstances or the units themselves change, and has to build the strongest stack possible.
What's worse, specialized stacks work poorly in this game so even if the AI could, for example, build an all bowmen stack, players will see that stack, send a single unit with missile immunity and kill them all. Even if the AI does notice there is a target weak to bowmen, the player will attack and kill that stack before it reaches the target, unless they literally fail to notice the stack is coming. Or worse, ignore it and cast Wall of Darkess in battle.
Same applies to magical ranged stacks (countered by a bunch of spells), Cavalry (countered by Negate First Strike).
The AI already is able to build intercontinental (flying+swimming) stacks so that exists.
Building stacks that avoid using a specific type of unit serve no real purpose beyond working in those specialized areas and will likely perform worse everywhere else, and the AI doesn't build stacks with a destination in mind. This sort of gameplay is bad even for human players because your specialized stack that has no flying or whatever type of unit will be useless after clearing that area, or if the area is cleared by someone else before you finish the stack. It also penalizes playing races that cannot build units that don't fly like Draconians.

[Anskiy]

Certainly true, specialized armies are bad for conquest unless the enemy happens to not have a counter at all, which is rare. But in some specific situations, it would be worthwhile for the AI to build specialized stacks that hard counter whatever the player is relying on, like magician armies against bow units or halberdiers against cavalry for defense. It would teach the player to strategize better and make for some interesting moments imo.

[Seravy]

Certainly true, specialized armies are bad for conquest unless the enemy happens to not have a counter at all, which is rare. But in some specific situations, it would be worthwhile for the AI to build specialized stacks that hard counter whatever the player is relying on, like magician armies against bow units or halberdiers against cavalry for defense. It would teach the player to strategize better and make for some interesting moments imo.

That sounds like something that should alter unit production priorities. The specialized stacks are still worthless if they aren't used against that particular player or they see it coming and attack it with something else.

Currently only two such rules exist :
1.Prioritize Flying units higher when the human player knows Flying Fortress
2.Prioritize units with higher resistance if the human player plays 5+ Death books and it's beyond turn 180.

[Suppanut]

Perhaps should also prioritize large shield units, magicians and guardian wind if player or enemy play as nomads, halflings or high elves and prioritize ranged units if human player play as draconians?

For high resistance priority, I think this also should be priority if human player playing 5+ chaos wizard too especially how spammy Apocalypse could be as battle's open move. (chaos wizard is nearly unstoppable as long as he has mana with him)

[Xanatar]

Hi there. I played during my teen days to MoM and appreciated your Com version (buyed it on steam) for some hours of game play. I would like to make two suggestions (I hope it wasn't made yet).

I kinda liked the slow paced rhythm of MoM and I think a game settings that slow everything just like a classical 4X (civilization for example). In short a game speed setting

I saw the propositon the dungeon spawning proposition and I second that. Why not a game mode that allow frequent dungeon spawning (that way it won't be forced on the player). I like the adventure and exploration feeling that dungeon give.

Have a nice day!

[Suppanut]

I don't get why Great lizard don't have swimmer trait as well as poison as real life monitor lizards family (genus Varanus, which are prototype of lizards in question) some of them know to be swimmer (water monitor) and some of them know for highly poisonous bite due to infection (komodo dragon).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_water_monitor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon

Another summon creature which I found weird due to lack of some prominent trait it has in myth is hydra, hydra in myth known for extremely poisonous venom which could kill everything and torment the immortal (it is reason why Chiron abandon his divinity in order to die, and also reason while Herakles's bow was so deadly as well as later reason why Herakles had to die as well.) So I found it is weird that Hydra in CoM don't have poison damage.

Actually, I would want to suggest another special kind ability which poison related, those poison sometimes not known for immediately kill (such as serious bacterial infection from komodo dragon) but those kind of poison should give attack inducing debuff along line of "-1 max health per combat turn, can't be ressurected, disband at the end of combat" but could be dispelled instead of normal bland poison as it is something more biological/supernaturally deadly.

[Suppanut]

I think some nasty death or sorcery wizards should try to send full stack of dark stalkers (not visible on strat map) or other invisible units to assassinate player sometimes when player let's his guard down and not on good term with them. This would be especially deadly for both nature and chaos wizards as both have no early counter for invisible enemies.