Caster of Magic II Bug Reports!

[Seravy]

Yeah, a fresh download and installation worked. The first time I downloaded it my connection was having trouble. Very odd that the game would function in the first place if the download was corrupted. Something must have been missing, because all the game options were also turned off (animations, sound, etc).

Well, the game can start with most of the image and sound files missing, it'll just give you the error the first time it tries to use the missing assets. (it does log the list of missing image files though so that is a good way to notice.)

[jhsidi]

Bugs:
- Flight does not grant 3 moves to units that start with less. Also, reminder that enchanted items were not granting their bonus movement, which you can test by making a +1 move accessory -- not sure if it was fixed but I don't recall seeing it in your patch notes.
- Prayer does not grant the +1 resistance.
- On this endturn, there's an endless loop range check error when it reaches my turn. This seems to be a building queue problem with towns finishing units and not having anything else to build, in this case the town of Harold at 130x/67y: https://ufile.io/klcbad3e
- Another endturn endless loop, this time happening on Ss'Ra's turn. Can't proceed with the game even if I back up several turns and try again, it always happens on this turn: https://ufile.io/fay74b43
- Flying units still can't attack through walls (at least, not the ones with the sorcery spell Flight cast on them).
- Fang the Draconian now appears in all my games with Thrown instead of Fire Breath. Doesn't make much difference (I think?) but it seems like probably an error, since he's Draconian and all.
- Yamrag The Warlock never seems to appear with his armor piercing attribute anymore.
- Sometimes the Summon Hero spell gets no result. The only way to replicate this is to cast it a bunch of times; possibly over the end-turn? You can try save-scumming this file to see it happen: https://ufile.io/92o3dqyw
- Your new Shift+C shortcut doesn't seem to work right, it just fills the entire screen with numbers.

Notes:
- If you get an Uncommon spell early on, it effectively breaks spell trading, because the AI wizards just ask you for that single spell over... and over... and over... Is there some system where they ask for the spell with the highest weighting? If so, that makes it a negative to get an Uncommon too early as you're barred from trading unless you're willing to give your great new toy out to everyone else in exchange for junk.
- The two darker green colors, Malachite and Ocean, are really hard for me to tell apart. See this image: https://imgur.com/a/GGlMA8c. Those are two stacks each from two different wizards, but they're barely distinguishable. To a lesser degree, I also have this problem with Purple and Violet. There's maybe no good solution to this other than nudging the colors a few shades further apart. Also, there's no black or brown flag yet, if those might work.
- Similar to above; with so many wizards, if the problem isn't that I can't tell the colors apart, it's that I don't remember which wizard is which color or exactly who I'm at war with. This would be a significant visual change, but could the stacks that I'm at war with have a tiny crossed-swords icon on them or red outline or something similar?
- Also, I really don't care to see all the wizards I'm not at war with move at end turn, but I can't turn off "Show Enemy Moves" because the ones I am at war with might sneak up on me. Could we have more granular controls? "Show Enemy Moves" and "Show All Moves", or a toggle button between the three options (enemy, all and none).

[Slingers]

Specifically -- the monster stacks have no animation when they appear, there's no warning that they're there, and with how fast stuff moves at end turn, it's very easy to miss them moving.

Not even the original game focused on neutral stacks spawning. That would need to be added as a new feature.
Adding to the list of reports "Rampaging monsters were spotted near <cityname>!" might be the best.

The warning colour "red" would make it easier to recognize Neutrals. This is how it is done in CIV. But a brown wizard would be confusing. Brown is not easy to see in Myrror anyway ...

[Seravy]

Yamrag The Warlock never seems to appear with his armor piercing attribute anymore.

He never had that ability. The Chaos Warrior is the one with armor piercing ranged attacks.

Confusing because both use lightning type ammo. Maybe the warlock should be changed to use a different projectile?

Sometimes the Summon Hero spell gets no result. The only way to replicate this is to cast it a bunch of times; possibly over the end-turn? You can try save-scumming this file to see it happen:

I got a hero 10 out of 10 times.
Might be an UI bug, if you somehow manage to cancel the spell or suppress the effect animation then it won't give a hero.
Otherwise the only way the spell can fail is if you already used up all the 25 heroes and they are all dead but that problem should give you a message.

- Your new Shift+C shortcut doesn't seem to work right, it just fills the entire screen with numbers.

That's what it is supposed to do : display the map coordinates on each tile.

- If you get an Uncommon spell early on, it effectively breaks spell trading, because the AI wizards just ask you for that single spell over... and over... and over... Is there some system where they ask for the spell with the highest weighting? If so, that makes it a negative to get an Uncommon too early as you're barred from trading unless you're willing to give your great new toy out to everyone else in exchange for junk.

Is this an AI request or your own attempt to trade?
Either way, I checked and when the AI makes a request, they should pick a spell randomly, it's not limited to always asking for the best one.

Your uncommon spell is most likely the only one worth enough to make a trade for the spells the AI can offer.

- The two darker green colors, Malachite and Ocean, are really hard for me to tell apart. See this image: https://imgur.com/a/GGlMA8c. Those are two stacks each from two different wizards, but they're barely distinguishable. To a lesser degree, I also have this problem with Purple and Violet. There's maybe no good solution to this other than nudging the colors a few shades further apart. Also, there's no black or brown flag yet, if those might work.

Brown is the neutrals so we can't use that.
I did have black in the early versions but it looks horribly out of place, especially the texts (like city enchantments) need to have a while "shadow" or outline otherwise it's unreadable, but then it's the inverse of all other colors which have a darker outline than themselves. Similar problem with "dark grey" and it's even harder to tell it apart from "silver".

I'll try to increase the blue content in "Ocean" a little.

- Also, I really don't care to see all the wizards I'm not at war with move at end turn, but I can't turn off "Show Enemy Moves" because the ones I am at war with might sneak up on me. Could we have more granular controls? "Show Enemy Moves" and "Show All Moves", or a toggle button between the three options (enemy, all and none).

By default, "Show Enemy Moves" does not show moves from allies. Probably we should extend that to include the Wizard's Pact.
Players in the "no treaty" group can attack you so they are not very different from those you have a war with, except in the former case the chance of attacks is lower. So excluding them is probably a bad idea.

[jhsidi]

He never had that ability. The Chaos Warrior is the one with armor piercing ranged attacks.

Confusing because both use lightning type ammo. Maybe the warlock should be changed to use a different projectile?

That makes sense -- lightning is armor piercing by definition, so I made an assumption. It does seem problematic to have one isolated example of lightning not being armor piercing.

You could change his projectile type, but that wouldn't work very well since his character art and spell selection is all lightning focused, not to mention that every MoM player will remember him with lightning. Can't be fire, either, because Malleus is the fire-based Chaos mage. How about giving him armor-piercing but removing something else to compensate? He could lose Arcane Power, or start with a lower ranged attack. I don't think armor piercing is necessarily overpowered at his cost tier; after all, Malleus has Destruction, giving him the ability to 1-shot a lot of units, and Flame Strike is superior to Warp Lightning.

By default, "Show Enemy Moves" does not show moves from allies. Probably we should extend that to include the Wizard's Pact.

Players in the "no treaty" group can attack you so they are not very different from those you have a war with, except in the former case the chance of attacks is lower. So excluding them is probably a bad idea.

Yeah... you're right, I'm just grasping at straws to reduce the movement spam at endturn. It was also a problem in MoM, of course, but didn't seem worth asking for the trouble of dealing with in that game.

Could Lawful / Peaceful wizards at least be excluded from "Show Enemy Moves"? They're forbidden from attacks without war status, right?

[Seravy]

You could change his projectile type, but that wouldn't work very well since his character art and spell selection is all lightning focused, not to mention that every MoM player will remember him with lightning. Can't be fire, either, because Malleus is the fire-based Chaos mage. How about giving him armor-piercing but removing something else to compensate? He could lose Arcane Power, or start with a lower ranged attack. I don't think armor piercing is necessarily overpowered at his cost tier; after all, Malleus has Destruction, giving him the ability to 1-shot a lot of units, and Flame Strike is superior to Warp Lightning.

Only champion tier heroes get Armor Piercing and it's better that way. It's not that it's overpowered but it's a well defined difference between normal and champion heroes - normal heroes don't get defense ignoring (or other top tier) special abilities.

I'm not sure Malleous really needs to keep Destruction - in the future, we could give that ability to a new hero instead since Malleous already has Flame Strike as his defining feature.

Could Lawful / Peaceful wizards at least be excluded from "Show Enemy Moves"? They're forbidden from attacks without war status, right?

Not exactly. They are forbidden to gain hostility on their own. But they can still gain hostility by the player attacking their units and then they will counterattack. This isn't possible if you have a treaty (as you are required to cancel the treaty to attack).

[jhsidi]

Can't really test at the moment as new games are halted by endturn errors before long. Here's the latest, just in case it's experiencing a different error from those reported before: https://ufile.io/shwcqx8b

Also, small note from the same file, at level 3 Rakir has Soul Linker +10. I haven't gotten to use him in combat yet to see what the effect is, but that seems off.

[Seravy]

Can't really test at the moment as new games are halted by endturn errors before long. Here's the latest, just in case it's experiencing a different error from those reported before: https://ufile.io/shwcqx8b

Also, small note from the same file, at level 3 Rakir has Soul Linker +10. I haven't gotten to use him in combat yet to see what the effect is, but that seems off.

To Hit and To Defend are now measured in 1% increments so that is equivalent to old Soul Linker+2 (+1 to hit and +1 to defend)

I'll upload the new version in an hour or two. Started going through all the compiler warning messages I've been ignoring so far and it takes forever.

[Seravy]

And here it is :

2020-09-10
-Added Burning Heart global enchantment image (by Slingers)
-Added missing feature : Minimal movement speed and scouting from Flight enchantments
-Fixed bug : Prayer does not grant +1 resistance
-Fixed bug : When Plague and Population Boom ends, the event type isn't set, causing a range check error
-When summoning a hero, now the text "A hero was summoned" is shown instead of the prisoner text
-When there is a crash, the game now displays a message for the user to report the bug.
-Fixed bug : AI range check error if a large stack containing a transport is on land.
-Added missing feature : Flying, noncorporeal, merging, wall crusher and teleporting units can use melee attacks through a wall.
-Fixed bug : Draconian hero has wrong type of attack
-Adjusted flag color "Ocean" to be bluer
-Added missing feature : "Show Enemy Moves" doesn't show allies.
-Extended the above to also not show players you have a wizard's pact with.
-Fixed compiler warnings.
-Fixed bug : AI Plane Shift research priority bonus for "Race to Unknown" had no effect
-Fixed bug : The variable that counts the number of tries before a node is allowed on sea is not zeroed
-Fixed bug : The variable that counts how many times land generation took the same direction in a row is not initialized on the first tile.
-Fixed map generation desert, river and swamp Y position formula
-Fixed bug : Feature "AI wizards will not warn about certain things after a new treaty" had no effect
-Fixed bug : Peace treaty sets Relation to an indetermined value
-Fixed several bugs with the AI warning the player for entering their territory without a wizard's pact
-Fixed bug : AI Divine Order preference was calculated wrong
-Fixed bug : AI checks for warding when deciding for Great Unsummoning wrong
-Fixed bugs in AI vortex movement function
-Fixed bug : AI lowered priority to attack non-ranged units affected by stasis in combat used wrong variable
-Fixed bug with AI staying behind wall strategy decision for ranged units
-Fixed bug with AI randomly moving confused units
-Fixed AI Earth to Mud targeting perceiving own units as enemy units
-Fixed bug : AI additional priority to raise dead heroes was not applied
-Fixed bug : Variable for AI disbanding units near the max unit limit wasn't initialized
-Fixed bug : AI always sets "skill needed" strategy flag
-Fixed some minor bugs in AI "considerattack" overland function
-Fixed bug : AI calculates settler distance from towers wrong
-Fixed bug : Undefined AI behavior when the AI's doomstack wants to leave a node but all 8 tiles are blocked.
-When the AI finds no free tile to send their units onto the main action continent, it will reset the main action continent.
-Fixed bug : Global enchantments disappearing due to maintenance was implemented wrong and displayed the wrong message.
-Fixed bug : Stasis overland effect didn't set the "at least one turn" effect on all but the last affected unit
-Fixed bug : high value unit being worth extra fame is sometimes not recognized
-Added a safety net of checking for a max of 9 units before returning a surviving monster to the lair after battle.
-Fixed bug : remaining movement adjustment on unit recalculation shared "previous max movement" variable between all units
-Fixed bug : City background "plains" wasn't displayed
-Fixed bug : The AI can use Spell Binding to learn spells no one else has available
-Fixed bug : AI combat spell slider remains unset when a unit is casting the spell
-Fixed a bug in AI army analysis for combat spells that defend against various attack types
-Added logging of AI army analysis results
-Fixed bug : priorities for AI selecting a target wizard had no effect, the last found target was taken.
-Fixed bug : best found priority variable not initialized in AI Plane Shift targeting function
-Fixed bug : When the AI casts Plane Shift, it doesn't fill the target variables by calling the targeting function

Most of these were found as a consequence to compiler warnings, so the changes are entirely untested.

[jhsidi]

Bugs:
- Crash while navigating the units menu in town. I think it's happening when my cursor would touch settlers. Open one of my towns, e.g. the capitol Deventor at 79x55, go to units, and just mouse over the items to reproduce. https://ufile.io/vo5760ok
- Crash on battle in AI fortress, probably because of the automatic lightning? It crashes right after he casts his first spell. Just walk one of the stacks into the adjacent town at 70x60. https://ufile.io/xg0w438o
- When I look at the shaman unit in the building queue of Thorn, at 61x62, I see attributes on them like undead, wall crusher, etc. Feels like it's held over from other units I looked at, e.g. I just got an undead fire giant, but it persists on loading the game: https://ufile.io/wwiw938g
- Crash on endturn: https://ufile.io/2oodmjbr
- AI units standing inside a Wall of Fire will attack units outside of it. However, it seems like the unit being attacked does not take fire damage when this happens. I think this behavior should be considered a bug, as the AI's melee units always attack anything adjacent, so you can wipe them out without ever dealing with the wall of fire by just walking up to the wall and not attacking.

Notes:
- Web should adjust the movement of units in battle when calculating flee. For example, I web a Great Drake; it's the only monster. When I flee, I lose my entire army because it has 4 move. But it actually had 0 move because it was webbed. ... actually this might be a bit overpowered as a strategy, but it's also a logical extension of the game mechanics, so I feel like it shouldn't be overlooked. Maybe the enemy could be considered to have 50% of its move speed when webbed and the army is fleeing?
- By the way, have you considered using an automated reporting tool for bugs? Here's the one I use: https://sentry.io/welcome/ ... Very convenient for debugging, especially as you scale to more users, as it'll show the exact code implicated and the software takes care of the annoying bits like finding an internet connection. The drawback is that I don't know if you could find one that already has the SDK for the language you're using.