Be cautious with the book discount thing. There may be other occurences, although I thought I may have got them all. Needs testing (as everything else). - Magic_exe is a bigger change, a lot of work, but I did with hope to get a much better startup (I feel excited about it, actually). On the other hand, I really must hang up with these big changes, it's eating my precious time... sorry.
You MUST test the AIs, if they get the extra spells as well (for 9 or 10 books). This is not easy, but really necessary. I suggest modifying starting wizard in Magic.exe to have 9 or 10 books (or using one that does have it already) and lowering difficulty, until he starts with it... than check it through ILSE's tool? Not sure. Or using Sorcery, they have Flight as 1st choice, you'll see it confirmed with their Settlers flying over the land very early (use Alt+RVL cheat).
EDIT: Nope, the flight thing does not work, I suggest using Nature wizard, you should see Cockatrices casted really early. (The Insecticide has some really weird AI decisions...)
I didn't modify the 13+ books discount, as (a) it is not easy, (b) I have some doubts about running into 0 cost spells (with conjurer?).
I don't think there's anything big left up. Once the queue passes as done, we'll do the "production carries over" thing. I have a few minor spell repairing suggestions up my sleeve (like Flying fortress becoming Cloud barrier and few other; small changes making current underwhelming spells worthwile.). Big spell changes need a conception and probably a new thread, as we agreed.
Conjurer discount is now 50% rounded DOWN (conservative approach, in 1.40 it is 25% rounded UP)). If you wish to round up, exchange the first "40" byte to "90".
Good luck with this mod, Hernan!
I spent quite a chunk of time making sure that the modifications you just provided do not cause any unexpected errors/problems and are working as expected. Luckily it's all good!
_The 'starting uncommon' element as well as the book discount changes seem to work. I tested a handful of opponent wizards with 9-10 books and they cast spells like 'shadow demons' impossibly early which means it works as intended.
_The experience thing works very well, I made a few balancing changes around it.
_The conjurer added perk works as well.
I'm getting really happy about all of these changes and I know I will need to continue testing for balance, especially with heroes.
Also, I'm surprised at the game difficulty compared to the original 1.31 version (or the aureus mod) due to a combination of my mod's elements and Kyrub's improved AI. Hard is now my preferred way of playing - a decent challenge without too many headaches. extreme is supposed to be a halfway point between 'hard' and 'impossible'? I can't seem to do well on 'extreme', even when playing a life wizard in myrror, even a friendly Ariel does a surprise declaration of war and takes 4 cities within 3-5 turns. I am not even trying impossible , it probably is.
(March 24th, 2015, 18:57)zitro1987 Wrote: Difficulty:
_Extreme as you documented is same as impossible, except for 25% less AI bonus. Trust me, it's too difficult in my mod. My proposal is to make 'extreme' a mid-point or somewhere closer than 'hard' than 'impossible:
*14 starting books instead of 15
*200% of population growth (same as hard, higher growth just looks absurd and can help player)
*300% of food/production/mana (I think this is the original 'extreme' bonus?)
*Research unchanged
*Upkeep discount multiplier (50%) compared to hard's 60% and impossible's 30%
*Diplomacy Softener - Whatever's on extreme is good
It's not hard to do, if you wish. But I thought that *maybe* you could re-think the whole structure of game difficulty.
Something along the lines of:
- abolish current Impossible level, as it is probably frustratingly hard and it requires extreme game grinding. I can clearly imagine that with most game exploits cut-off in the mod, the 400% bonus has become a bridge-too-far task. 400% is absolutely ridiculous bonus anyway.
- Push Impossible bonuses down to 300% (current Extreme level, you say it is very hard or next to impossible to win, which is probably what an Impossible level should look like)
- Rename current hard level (200%) to extreme; consider adding some smaller bonuses to make the game interesting (like starting books for CPs / harder punishment for fleeing the battles et cetera), but probably not larger AI economical bonuses.
- Make a new "hard" level at 150% of economic bonuses. For me, this may become an important level for new players of the Overhaul mod, since players often need to move up step by step through the levels of difficulty. Other than the bonuses, keep original hard setting of the 1.31 MoM game.
- Normal and Easy probably stay the same, although with Normal it should be checked that it has not become too hard a step for newbies.
You may certainly come with another suggestion (300-225-150-100 or 300-240-170-100 bonuses are probably better weighed). It's easy to do, no hesitations here. Personnally, I am looking forward to the day when playing MoM CPs with 150% bonus will become an uneasy task. Though that will most likely happen on another platform than DOS.
We both have good ideas, I'll try to consolidate these in a way that works and is unlikely to require revision.
Easy: prod/food/gold/mana at 100% instead of 125%. Everything else unchanged. (also, needs to be renamed from 'GE' to 'easy')
Normal: population growth 125% instead of 150%. Everything else unchanged
Hard: slightly easier than current 'hard'. Everything the same from original except:
*150% of population growth (same as original normal instead of 200%)
*upkeep modifier (75%), (same as original normal instead of 60%)
Extreme: harder than current 'hard'. Everything the same as 'hard' from original except:
*15 books (same as original 'extreme' instead of 13 from original 'hard')
*175% population growth (instead of 200% from original 'hard')
*Negative Diplomacy Softener of -40% instead of -25% to fully enjoy aggressive AI
Impossible: whatever is currently on 'extreme' with the exception of:
*population growth at 200% (compared with 300% in extreme)
*negative diplomacy at the level of impossible (-50%) to fully enjoy aggressive AI.
It's technically beatable and fun for the most experts of players (the hardest difficulties of Civ 4 are honestly worse than this!)
(March 29th, 2015, 14:43)kyrub Wrote: Doc with game difficulty information. Do your changes yourself, try and test.
Items half price, see my explanation and thoughts.
I feel foolish after testing - items are half as expensive as I originally thought. ... no change recommended!
As for the production carrying over thing, just the fact that it takes 10% of the file terrifies me. I'd rather focus on a few spell adjustments instead (and I will begin a thread in the near future for brainstorming)
I've made difficulty coding changes which make 'easy', 'normal' are slightly easier, 'hard' is somewhat easier, 'extreme' and 'impossible' much easier,
I do not understand the following, especially the first two lines below:
- 68E50 AI negative diplomacy, possible DOW for Gdiff >=2 02 01?
- 68F1A AI component in DOW decision for Gdiff >=2 02 01?
- 74930 Retreating always succesful for gdiff <= 1 01 00?
- 74E9D Retreating always for succesful gdiff <=1 01 00?
First, big thanks for making the first post readable. I thouroughly enjoyed going through it, I learned a lot. There are things I will critiize later, but the first and last impression is that of big improvement. [I reccomend reading it to anybody else, now we know what's in the box!]
This does not mean the information could not get better. Please, take the next section as a "friendly advice" you don't need to follow at all.
1) I think you should put FIRST the information about the biggest changes, by which I mean the changes that will immediately influence the player's feeling of the game. Otherwise you may bet on alienating 90% of the players inside first 10 minutes. Like:
Quote:• Units have higher movement points in general - the game is quick and eventful! [this simply must come first]
• Gold now can be as important as Mana [or whatever you say - details inside]
• Units have generally less figures, but more to hit bonuses to compensate [this will be shock for players]
• Building system is reorganized and simplified, with few buildings being strong source of mana. [full details inside]
• All units were revised with new statistics and abilities. All (?) racial units now share a typical trait.
• Rare and very rare summoned creatures got much stronger.
• Less city-spamming (distance must be 4 squres) [this is important to prevent "wtf" moments]
• Wizard's setup was reogranized, allowing starting uncommon spells and cost/research discount from 4+ books!
• Several changes to wizard abilities [retorts], giving more powerful choices. [full details inside]
These are my 9 favourites for absolutely_necessary_info for someone who could try your mod (I may have forgotten something.) No deep information, just the highlights. If somebody dislikes any of these points, he should not play your mod. - But for me, these points alone mean that I will try the mod.
2) Then you can have a section of Other changes [or whatever].
Here, the most important point for me is
- to avoid redundant or too general information, which says all and nothing. Especially redudancy is pure evil in documentation. Saying "alchemy is weaker and magic weapons are weaker" and saying 20 lines later "magic weapons don't give bonus" kills me. You have about 6 examples of strong redundancy in your document. (and I even don't know what magic weaps actually do... see later).
And this is the too general, not saying anything of notice. (I would put it out. The page is too long anyway.)
Quote:• Less abundant gold
• Less abundant production.
...
• Non-magic military units generally more expensive and powerful – you can’t get large numbers easily.
• Many (not all) of the summoning units generally have more useful roles here.
• Units generally more diverse, balanced, and with additional combinations of abilities.
(I feel like "Really? We thought you would make your units more boring and same-ish.")
3) Please don't tell us what things do not, what has gone from the game, rather tell us what they do, what is the new function)
• Alchemy is nerfed, but you should not make that the highlight. It's because gold is more important, no? And it's still not a bad choice, I hope...
• "Streamlined" is not a recommendation for many oldtime players I know. I understand that the game needed some simplifying in some areas [biuldings], but I would not trumpet it as a big achievment. Everybody feels something is lost to the game with a few buildings gone, why put off new players with the info on first page?
• Overall, your mod feels (after reading the points) like it takes a lot of excessive fun from the game. You probably don't want to leave this impression, do you?
• At some places, even I feel like you went too far with streamlining. Why do most races have +1 relations? That's totally boring, if you ask me.
4) This is a VIPoint for me, probably more important than other cosmetic things I have written above.
There are decisions that I find baffling and that really put me off from playing your mod. Currently two of them
Quote:• Mage heroes shoot arrows, not magic attacks. To compensate, their mana capacity and spell choices generally enhanced.
Can you explain that? All mages shooting arrows is really weird. Wizards skilled with bow don't fit the lore of the game at all. I can easily see some exceptions to the rule and it would be fun. Actually, the game needs more shooters. But all of the mages, it does not give sense. Maybe it is fonctional, but it's like the old suggestion of "Naturally flying settlers". Can't they use fireball or doom bolt? Or even magical attack, but expensive?
Quote:• All non-mage heroes have small amount of mana.
This is another decision where you clearly stray off the original imagination of the game. And the reason is not visible at all, why do all heroes need mana? Is the difference between mana proficiency and combat strength all gone? Mages are half-shooters, heroes half-mages. Oh dear. Heroes are touchy area for most players, me included.
5) There are small points that in my opinions improve the looks of the mod ("with wow factor"). Like these:
• It is difficult to get the capital, because of the lightning bolt auto defense.
• Razing cities bring more gold and do not cause fame penalty.
• Only 1 wizard can be in Myrran. If you play ‘myrror’, you will be alone.
• Mana income can be improved with several ‘wizard’s guilds’
• Offers of non-hero mercenaries and special items are far more frequent
If you remove a lot of clattering info, that the player will easily get to during the game itself (or reading the large Doc), these diamonds will shine.
(March 29th, 2015, 15:39)zitro1987 Wrote: As for the production carrying over thing, just the fact that it takes 10% of the file terrifies me. I'd rather focus on a few spell adjustments instead (and I will begin a thread in the near future for brainstorming)
It is the building queue in the cities that takes 10% of the code changes (it seems fully fonctional now). Production carrying over is rather simple add-on compared to it. If you wish, you can avoid the queue, no problem. But I bet a lot of players will miss it badly. I will, I hate the absence of the queue in MoM. Your choice.
Quote:I do not understand the following, especially the first two lines below:
It's OK, I checked and it has been fully fixed in Insecticide. No need to worry.
Heroes (particularly magic heroes) is the game concept I struggle with the most.
1) The seemingly unworkable mechanics of fixing the ranged magic attack problems with mage heroes (start with 2-3 weak shots then end up with 20+ overpowered shots and extreme movement) didn't leave me much choice. When hero has decent experience and a +mana wand, why would you even use spells? Sadly opponents waste their mana casting a potent 'fire ball' instead of 15+ shots.
In my opinion, this is a extremely unbalanced concept as long as mage heroes' ranged attacks are tied down to their mana. The only idea of a solution I can think of is designating a universal 'ranged magic' attack type that follows the game properties of arrows (minus the 'physical' part).
2) For the time being, I am left with two reasonable choices: remove all ranged attacks, or do a kind of 'flying settlers' fix with having them shoot fairly weak arrows. I chose the latter, but I could swing back to them being strictly mana casters and nothing else (0 to 1 melee)
_AI mages no longer go stupidly sacrificial
_to balance against the many melee heroes
_because mages already had ranged attacks. In the end, mage heroes remain similar on a 'practical' level
3) Unmentioned - Mage heroes stationed in capital bring an increasingly massive 'skill' bonus - another unbalanced (and non-intuitive) concept that bothers me a lot. Both players and AI would love doing this. I'd love it if the effect was cut down 50%.
4) Warrior heroes with tiny mana reserves - removed. It just didn't work as well as I anticipated (it feels 'weird'). I had this idea from warrior heroes of Age of Wonders/Heroes of Might and Magic ... but again, while it seemed to work on a balancing aspect, it didn't feel 'master of magic'.
(March 29th, 2015, 19:08)zitro1987 Wrote: 1) The seemingly unworkable mechanics [based on 'how to mod thread] of fixing the ranged magic attack problems with mage heroes (start with 2-3 weak shots then end up with 20+ overpowered shots and extreme movement).
...
The only idea of a solution I can think of is designating a universal 'ranged magic' attack type that follows the game properties of arrows (minus the 'physical' part).
Hmm. I understand your problems now.
Making ranged magic attack should be definitely possible. A bit unknown as far as amount of work goes. Also, we still need to force AI to use the attack sometimes. Not easy.
Being lazy, I ask: Is it not possible to change
a) amount of mana per attack (10, 12, or maybe 15?)
b) amount of starting mana plus amount added per level of wizard? (starts with 20-30 + 5-10 / level)
and in combination of both, we could get a suitable result...
The (a) would probably make ranged magic a less suitable option, the (b) would ensure that mage at demi-god level has only 5-6 attacks available. In short, ranged magic would become a basic attack, that loses its appeal in mid-game as the mage has possibility to cast more spells. What do you think?
Quote:I still ponder the idea of removing the arrows and keep them strictly mana casters
This is possible but quite revolutionary. Also it is probably pity to get rid of Arcane power.
Quote:3) Unmentioned - Mage heroes stationed in capital bring an increasingly massive 'skill' bonus - another unbalanced (and non-intuitive) concept that bothers me a lot.
I like the concept if it is toned down. In general: More hero uses => more choices => good concept.
Quote:Heroes with tiny mana reserves is a halfway point between Age of Wonders/Heroes of Might and Magic (where the mana reserves of warrior heroes is much higher) and Master of Magic where most heroes have no mana.
I am not against having more heroes with mana. The "Halfway group" that exists in 1.31 can be increased, if you like. But not that the halfway guys (Reywind, Marcus) are not the most popular ones. Players seem to prefer more distinct heroes with distinct roles rather than jack-of-all-trades. (I must say that the idea of all heroes being spellcasters makes me uncomfortable. AoW is no authority to me as far as game lore goes.)
Quick response, I cleaned up the 'overview' on the front page.
Having strictly-mana caster heroes is an idea I may pursue if there's not an easy solution.
But first, this is my ideal wishful thinking for mage hero - all i need is to change the '3' mana cost to '8' per shot and I do the rest . Maybe it's doable, so I'm putting this on my 'wish list':
*Ranged mage heroes start with damaging ranged magic attacks that cost 8 mana.
*Some mage heroes start with more powerful ranged attacks but less mana, with 1 or 2 champions having 'arcane power'.
*Some mage heroes have weaker attacks but more mana.
*Some fall around the middle.
*Staff/Wands can again have +ranged bonuses
... no change recommended!