Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Seravy]

Oh oops (about terror).

What do you think of 'change terrain' on hills -> mountains? I thought it might give a new dimension to the spell.

It would remove the functionality of making plains from hills and I wouldn't want that to happen. It would remove that nice combo of Raise Volcano+repeated Raise Terrain to make grasslands from tundra (or create ores through the volcano.)

[CyberFoxZA]

I think I might have found a bug. Using CoM v2

Whenever I attack a wizards army and that wizard then cast confusion on one of my heroes and when the battle is over, without losing any of my heroes, the hero (whom the confusion spell was cast on) is missing. Note he did not die in battle. This happened a few times and I had to reload my savegame and try again and hope the opposing wizard do not cast confusing on one of my heroes. I am sure this can't be intentional.

Edit: Ooops. Just remembered the sound bug which I thought was solved.

Just turned the sound on and problem solved.

[Seravy]

I think I might have found a bug. Using CoM v2

Whenever I attack a wizards army and that wizard then cast confusion on one of my heroes and when the battle is over, without losing any of my heroes, the hero (whom the confusion spell was cast on) is missing. Note he did not die in battle. This happened a few times and I had to reload my savegame and try again and hope the opposing wizard do not cast confusing on one of my heroes. I am sure this can't be intentional.

It is, though. It is even mentioned in the spell's description. Like all other control changing spells, Confusion also kills the unit at end of combat now if it didn't die on its own, however unlike those, Confusion can be dispelled to save the unit. This effect partially existed in the original game, but only happened if the unit was "retreating exhausted" or fleeing, now it also applies to all forms of end of combat. See Confusion here : http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=8091

The primary reason behind this change is to make control changing status spells more consistent, the secondary is to make the spell more useful, as the chance of side switching to trigger before the combat is over isn't as good with faster units as originally, and the third reason is to indirectly buff Call Chaos which can cause unresistable Confusion as one of the random effects.
This is one of those changes I'm having doubts about, although even this is far less powerful than how the original Confusion worked (the units not only died but you also won the combat if there were only confused enemy units left).

Edit : "cannot regenerate" is probably overkill though, I most likely should change that to normal death.
Edit 2 : or maybe not. checked and the other two control effects don't allow regeneration either. They don't work on heroes though.

Ultimately, this is a benefit you only get when you lose a battle which is inherently a pretty bad thing to base strategies on and hard to abuse. It's far more valuable for the AI who loses more often, but the human player knows when to dispel so that balances it out.

[CyberFoxZA]

I think I might have found a bug. Using CoM v2

Whenever I attack a wizards army and that wizard then cast confusion on one of my heroes and when the battle is over, without losing any of my heroes, the hero (whom the confusion spell was cast on) is missing. Note he did not die in battle. This happened a few times and I had to reload my savegame and try again and hope the opposing wizard do not cast confusing on one of my heroes. I am sure this can't be intentional.

It is, though. It is even mentioned in the spell's description. Like all other control changing spells, Confusion also kills the unit at end of combat now if it didn't die on its own, however unlike those, Confusion can be dispelled to save the unit. This effect partially existed in the original game, but only happened if the unit was "retreating exhausted" or fleeing, now it also applies to all forms of end of combat. See Confusion here : http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=8091

The primary reason behind this change is to make control changing status spells more consistent, the secondary is to make the spell more useful, as the chance of side switching to trigger before the combat is over isn't as good with faster units as originally, and the third reason is to indirectly buff Call Chaos which can cause unresistable Confusion as one of the random effects.
This is one of those changes I'm having doubts about, although even this is far less powerful than how the original Confusion worked (the units not only died but you also won the combat if there were only confused enemy units left).

Edit : "cannot regenerate" is probably overkill though, I most likely should change that to normal death.

Thanks for explaining and I should rather go read up on the spell before I post

I understand how it works now. Regardless if I win or retreat - If the unit is "confused" at end of battle it dies.

So if I don't have high enough resit and once a unit is confused and I don't have dispel magic that unit is doomed.

That could be devastating early game. Specially if one just got a "GOOD" hero or two and both are confused at end of battle. Would it not be possible to make the Confused, Possessed or Binded affect last x amount of turns, maybe 5 or 10 turns.

[Seravy]

That could be devastating early game. Specially if one just got a "GOOD" hero or two and both are confused at end of battle. Would it not be possible to make the Confused, Possessed or Binded affect last x amount of turns, maybe 5 or 10 turns.

It isn't any worse than 1-2 hits from common/uncommon direct damage spells. 2 Fire Bolts cost the same mana and will also kill an early hero. As a general advice, keep heroes away from battles involving other wizards if they play anything that's non-Life. (Black Sleep, Fire Bolt, even AEther Sparks and Psionic Blast kills low level heroes quite quickly. Life Drain is a bit safer but can hit very hard if unlucky. Most uncommon spells will kill a level 1 hero in at most 2 hits as well.)
Dispel Magic is one of the earliest spells for research, and it's usually easy to trade for it, too.
It's worth mentioning the fewer heroes you have, the higher the chance is to get another one, so it's not too hard to replace lost heroes (although getting one with the same abilities is very unlikely).

[CyberFoxZA]

That could be devastating early game. Specially if one just got a "GOOD" hero or two and both are confused at end of battle. Would it not be possible to make the Confused, Possessed or Binded affect last x amount of turns, maybe 5 or 10 turns.

It isn't any worse than 1-2 hits from common/uncommon direct damage spells. 2 Fire Bolts cost the same mana and will also kill an early hero. As a general advice, keep heroes away from battles involving other wizards if they play anything that's non-Life. (Black Sleep, Fire Bolt, even AEther Sparks and Psionic Blast kills low level heroes quite quickly. Life Drain is a bit safer but can hit very hard if unlucky. Most uncommon spells will kill a level 1 hero in at most 2 hits as well.)
Dispel Magic is one of the earliest spells for research, and it's usually easy to trade for it, too.
It's worth mentioning the fewer heroes you have, the higher the chance is to get another one, so it's not too hard to replace lost heroes (although getting one with the same abilities is very unlikely).

Thanks, will heed your advice. Fortunately I have a good habit of saving before every battle and also every other turn.

Yeah I noticed as soon as i have about 3 heroes, new hero's are not so abundant anymore.

[kjara]

Oh oops (about terror).

What do you think of 'change terrain' on hills -> mountains? I thought it might give a new dimension to the spell.

It would remove the functionality of making plains from hills and I wouldn't want that to happen. It would remove that nice combo of Raise Volcano+repeated Raise Terrain to make grasslands from tundra (or create ores through the volcano.)

Related terrain comment: This change makes deserts really bad relative to mountains. Any way to give them some sort of boost (perhaps a trade related boost?) or a slightly higher chance of minerals (gold/gems,etc)?

[Seravy]

Oh oops (about terror).

What do you think of 'change terrain' on hills -> mountains? I thought it might give a new dimension to the spell.

It would remove the functionality of making plains from hills and I wouldn't want that to happen. It would remove that nice combo of Raise Volcano+repeated Raise Terrain to make grasslands from tundra (or create ores through the volcano.)

Related terrain comment: This change makes deserts really bad relative to mountains. Any way to give them some sort of boost (perhaps a trade related boost?) or a slightly higher chance of minerals (gold/gems,etc)?

Unfortunately Deserts share code with forests and hills (they're all 3% production) so changing them individually is not possible.
I'm satisfied with them though, gems and crystals seem to appear in them quite frequently, and the game does need at least some bad terrain otherwise there would be no use for spells that improve it.

[zhantul]

I think I found a bug in the Focus Magic spell. When casting it on an bow using unit, it ignores the bonus gained from mithril or adamantium weapons in battle. It does show these bonusses in the overland map. (Regular magic units don't get a bonus from mithril/adam so this might be normal. In that case, the display in the overland map is bugged)

Playing in version 1.43.

[Seravy]

I think I found a bug in the Focus Magic spell. When casting it on an bow using unit, it ignores the bonus gained from mithril or adamantium weapons in battle. It does show these bonusses in the overland map. (Regular magic units don't get a bonus from mithril/adam so this might be normal. In that case, the display in the overland map is bugged)

Playing in version 1.43.

This is due to how combat stats works. Attack power is reset at start of every turn and all bonus is reapplied to it to ensure it stays the correct amount when an effect starts/ends. Ranged attack type is not updated to ensure a unit that runs out of ammo does not regain the lost ranged attack. This means that starting from turn 2 (only the defender gets a turn 1 btw) it's a unit that already has magical ranged attack so mithril is not applied to the attack strength.
Overland works as though it was combat turn 1, so it still shows the bonus.
The only way to fix this is to make ranged attack type also reset on each turn, which would then need to check for remaining ammo (if 0 don't do it), and would break the part of the spell that grants the ranged attack since it was specifically coded to not get affected by the lack of reset. Not sure if Warp Wood clears the ammo or the attack type, if the latter, that would also need to be changed.
Overall, most likely doable but far too much work for something that probably should not grant the bonus anyway (as you pointed out, it is a magical attack, so mithril should not help it.).
Fixing it the other way is probably easier, by adding an exception for mithril to do nothing to ranged attacks if there is Focus Magic on the unit. I assume the +1 to hit from the magical weapon does the same thing.