Test games played

[Seravy]

My point is that by having 2 wizards on Arcanus when the human picks Myrran, those 2 wizards have to split that plane. There is NO end game boss. And neither of those 2 wizards is strong enough to fight the human player after he conquers Myrror.

This is true, question is whether the 1 pick cost is too cheap for the "no endgame boss" perk or not. It might be.

We either have to change that assumption,

Based on how my experience of playing a diplomacy game with Halflings resulted in not controlling the entire plane, changing the assumption to "at least half of their home plane" might be more appropriate.

Also, if the human's plane is NOT bigger but has more wizards, then that means planar travel/early tower breaking will be a significantly more powerful strategy than anything else. That is kinda undesirable. So in general, the plane with more wizards should be bigger, regardless of which plane is it, or who is there.

Note that specifically the case you mention, Myrran human, with a large Arcanus, would be a "can I get into Arcanus and KO the wizards there early using my superior race" game. This game isn't like the Arcanus human. An "endgame boss" isn't possible in the first place - Arcanus races are inferior. The difficulty has to come from the other Myrran wizards, as Arcanus won't be reliable for that. (they won't even win the research race - Myrran races produce more power and Myrran nodes as well. So they won't beat the human with spells either.)

One of the problems is that, I would say.. 70-85% of games will have either a dark elf AI, or a dark elf neutral, which has priority. So in almost all games, no matter what the AI starts as, they end up as dark elf.

I thought Dark Elf and Draconian have equal priority. Trolls, Dwarves and Beastmen have lower though, but I've seen plenty of AI with those. They do get the neutrals but their first 6-8-15 cities are of their starting race. Which is more than enough to make a difference in which units come your way.

[zitro1987]

You can always start with an intermediate update in the land-mass change without any major testing, and continue expanding later as needed with testing.

Here's what a more subtle intermediate step may be (based on my earlier numbers)
2 wizards on one plane, 1 on the other : ??? -> 50%/50% instead of 55%/45%
3 wizards on one plane, 1 on the other : ??? -> 60%/40% instead of 65%/35%
4 wizards on one plane, 1 on the other : ??? -> 67%/33% or 70%/30%

[zitro1987]

If we are to increase land-sizes this way, would you possibly reconsider games where starting on myrran guarantees all wizards in myrran but 1 'arcanus boss' ? I recommend this at least when picking 3 enemies (2 in myrran 1 in arcanus).
*With 1 more wizard in myrran, the land adjustment will take place, keeping the myrran land to player ratio about the same (thus accommodating for an extra wizard)
*Allows arcanus boss! More difficult myrran games! Parallels arcanus player games! Too many benefits here!

In short, by allowing most of the land to be in myrran when playing myrran with many AIs, we can revisit this topic and be able to bring the difficulty of a lone arcanus.

[Seravy]

That would make Myrran no longer worth even 1 pick.

Would you spend 1 pick for the last boss having a weaker race? Because that's all it'll really do - others would also get all the Myrran advantages so you'd not be gaining ANY advantage over ANY other wizard except the last boss.

The main and only selling point that makes Myrran worth a pick cost, is having fewer wizards on your plane.

Unless we want Myrran to turn into a niche pick meant for abusing Planar Travel to monopolize Arcanus and abandon Myrror early, it should not be 3/1 wizards as Myrran.

[Nelphine]

No, the main pick for myrran is that the races are better.
This means, that since the human can abuse those better than the AI, you can do things like Rich Dwarves. You can do power production abuse with dark elves. You can do buffed uber trolls of regeneration. You can do abusive tactics with darconians via early flight, and late game windwalking (and I don't even mean trying to use more than 1 per turn on the same stack - I just mean that being able to move your doomstacks 4/5 per turn, anywhere, the AI simply can't counter, nor even understand).

All of those things the AI cannot replicate. They're also built into the races, so you can't just fix them either. It doesn't matter that the AI have the same race, the human WILL be better at using it.

And yes, the late game AI having the weaker race, so they don't have run away power production? That by itself IS worth a pick.

[Nelphine]

Update on casting skill test: 257 combat casting skill, January 1410. Power Income: 1373 (+ about 450 research that can't be switched). Still only have ~7 nodes. Researching my first very rare. Didn't get Aether Binding OR Uranus' Blessing.

Arcanus wizard, on the overall graph, has about 90% of my power; and has about 6 times my army strength (not surprising since I'm focusing on economy.. and he's barbarian... I'm actually really surprised he hasn't broken towers already. Might be a recent neutral barbarian he got - if he started as barbarian, he should have smashed multiple towers by now.)

Also: Steam cannons are incredibly silly. I mean, we knew this, but, I'm taking out neutral great wyrms and doom bats and archangels with them. Most recently, 8 steam cannons and an air ship, killed 5 stone giants and 1 gorgon. (Without any spell buffs, nor warlord)


May 1411:
322 combat casting skill (increase of 65 in 16 months). Power income up to 2149 (11 nodes). Sadly, I don't think I've got any extra sorcery books, so I can't use Uranus' Blessing to pump up my skill like crazy. (That would be what, another 100 skill?) Did pick up transmute, so my dwarf cities that had gold veins are being converted into the yellow crystals. Dumping steam cannons on all the towers (Arcanus wizard DID crack at least 1 tower so far using bezerkers. Luckily I was already right there, steam cannons go!); only 3 towers left uncracked.

Sent a scout group through into Arcanus (8 doom drakes + an angel, super speed!); so far I've cracked 2 nodes that the AI hadn't yet, although it cost me a few doom drakes. Might even get to meld them as that island seems to have virtually nothing on it. Sadly, no way I can get anything to defend it, so I'll lose them soon.

[Seravy]

No, the main pick for myrran is that the races are better.

No, if everyone also gets them, they aren't.

Sure, the AI is better at playing some races, and worse at others, but this isn't specific for Myrran races.

The AI is also bad with Halflings, Barbarians, etc., in fact the AI is worse than the human at playing any race, the only real difference is, how much worse.


Cannons being too powerful is something we'll need to think about when we revisit Dwarves, but that race has way greater problems than that to worry about. I do worry about Catapults though - they might be way too undercosted right now.

[Nelphine]

Catapults couldn't do a lot of what I'm doing with steam cannons. The extra hp and armor is extremely important (like against those stone giants).

[Nelphine]

I'm pretty sure dark elves were higher priority than draconian for settlers (as they most certainly should be if they aren't - you don't need a lot of draconian cities in the long game - they miss a key economy building, and air ships don't need to be produced en masse, not that ai can use air ships, and less power) , but it's been a long time so maybe they aren't right now.

[Seravy]

A quick look at my file, currently Draconian, Dark Elf, High Men, High Elf, Klackon and now Halflings are marked as tested and fairly balanced.

Which leaves Barbarian, Gnoll, Nomads, Lizardmen, Orcs, Beastmen, Trolls and Dwarves to test.

I'm quite sure Nomads are good (played them plenty of times) so they are not a priority, which leaves playing Orcs, Gnolls, Barbarians or Lizardmen next. Any suggestions? (race/realm/strategy/whatever)