(February 26th, 2016, 17:25)ChongLi Wrote: Hey, would it be possible for a buff to increase the amount of ammo a unit has? Focus magic is a pretty good buff but it kinda sucks for units that only have 4 ammo on their magic ranged attacks.
There is/will be a new hero ability that does that.
(February 26th, 2016, 05:35)Seravy Wrote: A more important question came to my mind in my current game.
I'm considering to bring back Armor Pierce to paladins (and restore their attack strength to the original). I could use some opinions before deciding.
Additionally, I'm considering to give High Men Priests the Resistance to All +1 ability.
The race has some disadvantages now, and I feel the extras they get (pikemen, better magicians) might not be worth enough to keep them an above average race.
Priests getting +1 resistance to all is a good idea, and matches your general pattern of giving the race better-than-average mid-tier units. Plus, the race is in need of higher-resistance low to mid tier units.
What if Paladins can cast the 'healing spell', have 'healer' ability, or both? That could expand upon their 'support unit' nature and in many games, paladins can heal, including to themselves.
I'm not sure about giving paladins back armor piercing, as that would make them a bit too similar to Elven Lords.
(February 26th, 2016, 17:59)zitro1987 Wrote: I'm not sure about giving paladins back armor piercing, as that would make them a bit too similar to Elven Lords.
There is a difference though, Elven Lords have +2 to hit, Paladins don't. So Elven Lords hit harder and they even cost less, but Paladins have more health, Holy Bonus and different (better) immunities, too.
What if they had Armor Piercing but no First Strike? Although most cavalry type units have do have first strike so that would be weird.
by the way Griffons are First Strike + Armor Piercing too, as are the two champions.
Another option I see is to give Paladins "Lucky" but that really would make them too much live Elven Lords (it's a + to hit)
I think I'll go with 6 melee, 6 armor, 5 health, 8 resistance, First Strike, Armor Piercing, Death and Illusion Immunity, Holy Bonus 1 and no + to hit for the current 240 cost.
Elven Lords are 5 melee, 4 armor, 4 health, 10 resistance, First Strike, Armor Piercing, Poison Immunity and +2 to hit for 160.
I'm more worried about Armor Piercing making them too similar to Pikemen actually, who also have it. Pikemen are cheap, 8 figure and do not require a cathedral though.
I would be tempted by giving them the Healer ability. It makes them a support unit, but they already are. I think Resistance to All stacks with Holy Bonus, could give them that as well.
Another question is, what do we do with Eternal Night.
The current effects are fine but not very satisfying, you can just cast Darkness and Evil presence for similar results.
The following two additional abilities are being considered :
a., Also halve the research production of buildings of all other cities in addition to power from temples
b., All non-death units in combat gain -1 to their resistance globally
I'm tempted to go with a for Eternal Night and b for Evil Omens but Evil Omens is powerful enough even without buffing so it can be Eternal Night doing either of them or both. Probably doing a. for Eternal Night and not using b. at all is the best solution? Resistance reduction is very very powerful, although it would be a nice interaction because other players could also take advantage of it.
I think halving the research production might come a bit too late for a very rare spell like Eternal Night. By then I think most of the other wizards would have finished all of the very rare spells they had to research, given their substantial bonuses. I love the idea of -1 resistance globally, though. Anything that can stack with Black Prayer and will open up higher-tier units to my deadly curses is welcome by me!
(February 26th, 2016, 20:41)ChongLi Wrote: I think halving the research production might come a bit too late for a very rare spell like Eternal Night. By then I think most of the other wizards would have finished all of the very rare spells they had to research, given their substantial bonuses. I love the idea of -1 resistance globally, though. Anything that can stack with Black Prayer and will open up higher-tier units to my deadly curses is welcome by me!
I ended up doing the -1 resistance, with the limitations of only affecting nondeath units not controlled by the controller of Eternal Night. This works on the overland map and will help Black Wind and Death Wish unlike any other spells that reduce resistance. It's also cumulative if multiple enemy wizards cast the spell, just like the power reduction part.
My reasons being :
-You can stack spell save modifiers anyway so the balance never existed in a sense as far as resistance goes. Not to mention Mind Storm and Warp Creature.
-10% isn't that big deal actually. Except on stuff like Death Wish or Death Spell but those only have a -2 save.
-If the spell doesn't work on own units, it won't be abused against the AI casting it. Although it will help against the other 3 AI players, the lost powerbase still means it's hurting more than helping.
-The research reduction indeed comes too late for being relevant
-And finally, research reduction is unfun. It stalls the sense of game progress.
Highlights
-Heroes and random abilities are now grouped into 3 groups : Warrior, Mage, Leader or a combination of these. -9 New hero abilities have been added!
-Astrologer and Historian changes
-Even smarter AI and more bugs fixed
-Removal of Righteousness and True Light, Addition of Heavenly Light, Supreme Light. Inspirations moved to rare, Eternal Night now reduces resistance.
-Ships have zero food and gold maintenance mainly for AI reasons.
-Heroes cannot desert if you are out of gold, you lose all your other units only.
-Buffed most rare or very rare summoned creatures.
-AI will prefer to build their settlers in the city containing the best race available instead of anywhere. In general, long term races are preferred to "rush" races, those are only beneficial in the first few cities anyway.
-AI now gets +1 pick per difficulty level starting from normal, instead of having 15 on extreme+ and 12 otherwise.
1.4
-Draconian hero now has 5 Fire Breath instead of 9
-Sprites now have an upkeep of 2.
-Basilisks now have +1 armor.
-Hero abilities are now split to three groups : Mage, Warrior, Leader instead of only Mage and Warrior.
-Armsmaster is now a Leader ability. Leadership is now a Warrior Leader ability.
-New random Mage hero ability : Capacity – increases ammo by 1 per 2 levels. Super version exists.
-Sage heroes now produce 6 RP per level. Super Sage heroes produce 9.
-New random Mage hero ability : Aether Master – hero produces 8 RP per turn per level. Super version exists.
-New random Mage Leader ability : Guiding Beacon – All unit in the army gain experience level/3 to their ranged attacks (both missile and magical)
-New random Mage Leader abilitiy : Soul Linker – All friendly fantastic creatures alternatingly gain +1 To Hit or +1 To Def during combat for every 2 levels of experience. Super version exists.
-New random Leader ability : Supply Commander – All friendly units in combat have +2 ammo.
-New random Mage Leader abilitiy : Divine Barrier – All friendly units in combat gain +1 defense per 3 levels of experience. Super version exists.
-New random Warrior Leader ability : Logistics – All friendly units in combat gain +0.5 movement per level of experience.
-New random Mage ability : Ritual Master – Hero produces 4 power per experience level each turn. Super version exists.
-New random Warrior Mage ability : Battlemage – Hero gains 1 MP per experience level when performing a melee attack or counterattack. MP cannot go over the maximum value. Super version exists.
-Swapped optional portrait of Beastmaster and Druid
-Beastmaster now has Soul Linker and 2 lower starting melee attack but higher ranged.
-Dervish now has Logistics.
-War Monk now has 2 random abilities instead of 1.
-Assassin now has First Strike and +1 movement.
-Wind Mage now has Guiding Beacon.
-Illusionist hero now has 6 ammo instead of 8.
-Priestess now has Divine Barrier and 1 random ability, but no longer has Arcane Power
-The Knight now has 2 random abilities.
-The Druid now has Ritual Master and no random ability.
-The Chosen now has normal Leadership instead of super, and has Divine Barrier, Guiding Beacon, Super Battlemage.
-The Ninja now has 3 random abilities instead of 2.
-The Necromancer now has Ritual Mastery
-Heroes are now assigned to the following groups (only those that have random abilities are listed):
Warrior
Orc Warrior
War Monk
Assassin
Draconian
Amazon
Swordsman
Black Knight
-AI will now cast Web to remove flight from units when Crack's Call is available to use on them.
-The game can now list up to 16 units on the change production screen. No more vanishing spearmen!
-Astrologer “Magic Power” renamed to “Power Production”, no longer includes casting skill, only power income.
-Astrologer “Spell Research” renamed to “ Spell Power”, now includes research+casting skill.
-Historian graph no longer includes “Spell Power”, instead adds “Army Strength”, “Power Production” and the hidden “Total Population” together. This means that the graph will not contain any variables that cannot be reduced by conquest (skill and research).
-Historian will now show the graph of banished wizards.
-The AI will now prefer spells that can target heroes, especially if the spell is Crack's Call, Disintegrate, Word of Death, Mind Storm, Doom Bolt, or Raise Dead.
-Fixed bug : Dispel Magic always works for removing curses from own units.
-AI Overland casting : Earthquake now has a priority of 25
-Fixed bug : AI targets Divine Order with Disjunction when they shouldn't, due to priority going negative.
-Fixed bug : Crusade applies extra level twice during combat for health calculations.
-Rightousness now costs 40 to cast, 1000 to enchant into items.
-Colossus now moves 3.
-Behemoths now have Regeneration
-Behemoth now moves 3.
-Great Wyrm now has Armor Piercing.
-Colossus now has 12 defense.
-Colossus now has Illusion Immunity
-Colossus now has 37 health.
-Necromancer now has Super Soul Linker
-Warlock has Super Ritual Master
-Fixed Inspiration displaying the wrong amount of production in the detailed view.
-Righteousness has been removed from the game.
-Added new very rare combat enchantment : Supreme Light.
-Added Heavenly Light, it is now a common city buff with completely new effects.
-Removed True Light from the game.
-Inspirations is now a rare instead of a very rare.
-Slightly adjusted AI default spell picks for the start of the game to add preference to some buffed or new commons.
-Bless now adds +5 def and resist but costs 7/35.
-Removed the item power “Righteousness”
-Added new item power “Shadow” for sword/mace only. Allows the weapon to damage enemies by hitting their shadow. Effect : Gain Thrown equal to base melee attack/2. Requires 3 Death books, costs 500.
-Divine Protection item power now costs 1000.
-Bless item power now costs 200.
-Wraith Form item power now costs 400.
-Planar Travel item power now costs 300.
-Fixed a crash bug when summoning a noncorporeal unit into a full island city.
-Ships no longer have a gold maintenance. The AI is unable to disband ships (due to the risk of units drowning if carrier), and now that they use a decent sized fleet this causes them to disband their entire land army even heroes due to lack of gold if down to the last 1-2 cities.
-Heroes cannot desert due to lack of gold. Other units will desert instead if any exists, otherwise nothing happens.
-AI cannot disband heroes due to lack of gold.
-Ships and catapults have no food upkeep. (main reason is the above, AI being unable to disband ships, so their land units would starve to death)
-Forming a Peace Treaty cannot improve relations over neutral (0).
-Parthenon, Temple and Cathedral now has a maintenance of 1 only.
-Wizard's Guild now costs 600 to build.
-Dispel Magic, Disel Magic True now costs 200, and Disenchant Area now costs 400 to research.
-Magicians now have Caster 20 instead of Fireball Spell, but they can always cast Fireball from the mana in addition to whichever spells you have available.
-Manticores now have Weapon Immunity, 3 figures with poison 4 and 5 health each.
-Efreet now have +9 health, +3 melee and +6 ranged attack
-Great Drake now has +5 health and +5 attack
-Hydra has +1 melee and fire breath
-Colossus now has +5 melee and ranged attack.
-Demon Lord has +5 melee, ranged and health.
-Arch Angel has +2 melee, +5 Health
-Angel has +4 melee, +7 health
-Great Wyrm has +5 melee.
-Storm Giant has +3 ranged and +5 health
-Djinn has +3 melee, +8 ranged, +9 health.
-Sky Drake has +5 attack, +5 Health.
-Regeneration now costs 45/225 to cast.
-The bonus To Defend is only applied to the first 15 defense points a unit has. Additional defense above 15 is always rolled with the base 3/10 chance.
-When the AI uses Resurrection, it will prefer the highest level hero available. However, better heroes are considered as though they were 1-4 higher level. The most preferred heroes are the Swordmen, Illusionist, Necromancer, Paladin, Black Knight, Chaos Warrior at +4, the Thief, Draconian and Amazon at +3. All other heroes are +0 to +2. Random abilities are not considered, the modifiers are constant. Original code ignored hero level completely and always revived the highest ID number hero (which might have been a level 1 champion)
-AI resurrection casting priority increased from 100 to 150.
-AI will use “Declare War” type messages when the player conquers a city and triggers war, instead of “Warning, you attacked my city” type messages which make better sense if the player lost and there is no war yet.
-Monthly reports will now display city growth regardless of size (reversal of insectice change)
-AI will now prefer targeting the best unit available with Raise Dead or Animate Dead. AI will now consider casting these spells to be the same priority as healing the unit would be if it was alive, so stronger units increase the likelyhood of casting the spell. Raise Dead specifically prefers targeting heroes on top of unit stats, and the spell will gain extra priority to be cast.
-Fixed bug : AI is unable to use Animate Dead
-Fixed bug : When the AI uses Animate Dead, the human player selects the target.
-AI will consider the potential damage done when targeting nukes in combat twice as important as the remaning health of the unit to try to maximalize the damage done.
-AI will prefer targeting heroes with direct damage spells as though the spell was able to do twice as much damage to them.
-Storm Giants now have Missile Immunity.
-Fixed bug : Terror works on Death Immune enemies.
-Fixed bug : newly created zombies have 1 or 2 points of damage sometimes.
-The AI will prefer targeting ores with Corruption and Raise Volcano.
-The monster amount scaling on difficulty level adds monsters as though the difficulty was 1 higher to account for the insecticide downward difficulty level shift. (Normal was 2 now it's 1)
-Towers now have 1200-3600 points worth of monsters instead of 650-3050.
-Fixed bug : Runemaster has no effect on Disjunction when used by the player.
-Fixed bug : Runemaster has no effect on combat spells Dispel Magic and Disenchant Area, or the effect is applied without the retort introduced by insecticide.
-Fixed bug : Invulnerability cannot be dispelled by overland Disnechant Area.
-Fixed overland disenchant area showing the wrong spell names for moved or new spells.
-Fixed bug : combat summoned units do not have effects applied to them until next turn (like High Prayer)
-AI now avoid building settlers of some races if a more preferred race is available in another controlled city.
-AI is now allowed to to have build a second settler on a continent where they already have one, but not more than that. This helps spreading on large/huge land where it would take too much time for them to travel one at a time.
-AI is now allowed to produce settlers in cities with a populaton of 3 or higher instead of 5 or higher to prevent getting “stuck” with the best available race in the moutains with a low max. pop.
-Nodes now have a strength 60 countering aura instead of 50.
-Changed AI number of starting picks :
Easy = 12
Normal = 12
Hard = 13
Extreme = 14
Impossible = 15
-Fixed bug : Revived zombies retain scouting level of the original unit.
-Djinn and Wind Mage hero now uses the same shot type as the Sage and Illusionist. This means Resist Elements and Elemental Armor no longer protects against these two units.
-Focus Magic now grants shot type that used to belong to Djinns, not available on units without the buff. This fixes the bug of the bonus damage applying when it wasn't supposed to.
-Fixed Focus Magic granting infinite ammo for some units.
-Shot type 22h (from Focus Magic) is now Sorcery type instead of Nature.
-Paladins have 6 armor, 6 melee and have Armor Piercing again.
-High Men Priests have Resistance to All +1 but lost 1 of their own resistance since they gain it back from the ability.
-Fixed bug : when starting the game, AI wizards spend 2 picks on Famous instead of Runemaster.
-AI will prefer to produce mana if below Turns*10 instead of Turns*3.
-AI will avoid to produce mana if above 10000 instead of 4000.
-Halved the effect of casting cost modifiers on AI combat spell selection.
-AI will prefer “A” category spells (direct damage) if number of enemy units is 2 or less
-AI will prefer “E” category spells (summons, spells that take control of enemy units) if number of own units is 2 or less
-Eternal Night now grants -1 resistance to all non-death units controlled by wizards other than the caster both in combat and on the overland map.
1.41, fixes some severe bugs, and improves AI settling!
Quote:1.41
-Diagonal movement in combat no longer costs an extra +0.5 in an inconsistent way.
-AI uses windwalkers to carry the entire stack over sea instead of only sending the windwalker.
-Combat enchantments granted by other effects (Cloud of Darkness) now show up as actual enchantment icons
-Fixed bug : If the AI is the defender during combat, there is an excess end of turn before the player's turn starts.
-Fixed bug : AI takes two turns before the auto battle is switched off, effectively cheating.
-Fixed bug : AI sends settlers to wrong place because uses an unset variable instead of actual plane of location
-Adjusted AI preference of sending settlers into a tower instead of a location on same plane
-AI will never send a settler into a tower if already reached a spot that can be settled.
-Adjusted bugged insecticide “other plane settling” priorities. Now the AI won't ALWAYS send every settler into the other plane, and even expansionist will at least use a few on its homeland. It's entirely stupid to completely ignore one plane, even more so if the wizard started on Myrror.
-Adjusted AI priorities for selecting settling locations. The best spots will now be usually selected.
I have been thinking about armmaster and training in general...
Armmaster ability can be way too overpowered or useless depending on which hero you get it on and when. For example had one game with the rogue as first hero (pretty early) and adamantum resource near. It was a nobrainer. But if you get armmaster at a late champion that you intend to use for fighting then it takes the place of other ability that you might actually want. So it's great support ability and bad fighter ability... It is not available to low end heroes(or was not) which balanced the overpowered side.. but if you get it on an powerful hero, whom you don't want to keep training units, it could at least train other heroes or make this one get experience faster.
For example: I would rename it "Taining". Make it 1xp per level of the hero and all heroes in stack receive +3xp(flat) per turn.
Another thing that could help for training low level heroes... maybe for each hero of at least 2 levels higher than the current give the current hero +1xp up to a cap of commander maybe. It makes sense since if you add a low level hero to a stack it should learn from the example of the more experienced ones.
This is all about turn experience of course, not about battle experience.
Also I notice my units receive battle experience very quickly. Seems substantially faster than in vanilla at least. Is this the case? Do battle actions like kills change the way experience is distributed?
