Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Seravy]

Since Hadriex's last game showed how incapable the AI is at handling continents of excessive sizes still, here is 2.51 which should get rid of this problem once and for all :

2.51
-Druid hero has Construct Catapult instead of Call Centaurs
-Continents generated are limited to 200 tiles each : continents of very large sizes make the AI fail to notice stacks due to limited size arrays used in decisions (including their own) and generally make the AI inefficient at moving their armies.

Also makes the - pretty high priority - AI spell picks that help units across sea now worth it even on Huge land size : there are at least 3 large continents and some islands even on that setting, instead of all land being clustered into a single supercontinent.

[Seravy]

And one more :

2.51b
-The AI is now able to recognize and use up to 251 of their own overland stacks instead of 80 through the global stack system (used for plane shifting, targeting Spell of Return, disbanding decisions, sending out ships from cities where they were created, settlers boarding ships and checking towers). All other overland unit decisions are made through the continent based system and are unaffected.

Since this required changing memory allocations, please report any stability issues if you encounter any.

[Seravy]

Third time is the charm :

2.51c
-Fixed bug : If there are 80 or more AI stacks on a continent, as soon as all 80 are found, any further units are ignored, even if they would belong to one of those 80 stacks that are still in the limit.

[zitro1987]

-Continents generated are limited to 200 tiles each : continents of very large sizes make the AI fail to notice stacks due to limited size arrays used in decisions (including their own) and generally make the AI inefficient at moving their armies.

Quick question - does this change only affect magic.exe, or does it impact wizards.exe as well?

[namad]

I thought huge made continents bigger, what does huge do now instead?

Does huge determine the number of total land tiles in existence? but this change will turn 1giant continent into 2 half-giant continents?

I ask because I always play large or more myself, just because I find land more interesting than sea.

[Tiltowait]

The size determines the total number of land tiles on a map. Previously Huge could be relied upon to generate a Pangea supercontinent, but now it won't. I like the sea game, because historically sea power was a huge factor in the world and it gives an extra layer to the game. Makes flying units more useful and makes Lizardmen relevant. Nothing better than sinking opponent's fleets of Triremes and Galleys with Javelineers. Moreover the computer will settle huge tracts of land and beat you to death with micromanagement. Managing 5 cities is fine, managing the growth and production of 20 cities at different stages of development is a huge pain and changes MoM from an army game into a very user-unfriendly spreadsheet. If you like it, more power to you, that's why we have the option for different sizes.

[Seravy]

-Continents generated are limited to 200 tiles each : continents of very large sizes make the AI fail to notice stacks due to limited size arrays used in decisions (including their own) and generally make the AI inefficient at moving their armies.

Quick question - does this change only affect magic.exe, or does it impact wizards.exe as well?

Yes, this is magic.exe.
The other 3 changes dealing with the 80 stack limits are wizards.exe.

I thought huge made continents bigger, what does huge do now instead?

Does huge determine the number of total land tiles in existence? but this change will turn 1giant continent into 2 half-giant continents?

I ask because I always play large or more myself, just because I find land more interesting than sea.

Huge generates 700 tiles of land. Large generates 550. Fair is 400. Small is 250, Tiny is 150.

Tiny generates land in 2-5 passes of 2-8 tiles of land.
Small and Fair generates land in 2-5 passes of 8-20 tiles of land.
Large and Huge generates land in 2-5 passes of 15-30 tiles of land.

After some test runs, it's safe to say Huge usually generates 3 very large continents and some medium to small ones using the new system.
Continent size is entirely random - land patches generated either overlap and become one continent or not - what this change does is it checks before each tile if it would connect with any continent already 200 tiles large, and if yes finish that land patch and start another one elsewhere instead of connecting the landmasses.
Due to the amount of land being generated, it almost always resulted in one supercontinent originally as land connecting with each other is way more likely than not when about half the available area is filled.

[Al_Al]

Is it all right that in the current download the Help.lbx in the optional files is older than the Help.lbx in the normal files?

[Seravy]

Is it all right that in the current download the Help.lbx in the optional files is older than the Help.lbx in the normal files?

Yes. I play the game with the optional files on, and work on those, then patch them "back" to normal, not the other way around.
The help.lbx and magic.exe are the only two affected, since those contain the default wizard descriptions and actual data.
There are no other files where the original the normal and the optional are all different so there are no other "overlapping" files.

[vicwaberub]

Yes, this is magic.exe.
The other 3 changes dealing with the 80 stack limits are wizards.exe.

I'm confused. Which is the ultimative file I should start? wizard.exe or magic.exe?