CHAOS Realm

[Seravy]

-Fixed bug : AI uses rebels to satisfy minimal farming requirements if nothing else is available, population does not shrink to lack of food.

Meh no wonder the AI's cities were doing doing fine despite the Great Wasting+Armageddon. The whole point of that combo is to starve smaller cities by having everyone rebel. (and to make cities small with Call the Void :D )
How did I miss this when testing Death? Or did it break in a later update I wonder... I really hate the end of turn town recalculation, so hard to make it work right.

[GermanJoey]

bug: when using Call Chaos, the Warp-Creature effect does not actually affect the unit's stats. It'll say that its attack/shields are halved and change the unit's sprite, but they won't actually be halved.

[Seravy]

bug: when using Call Chaos, the Warp-Creature effect does not actually affect the unit's stats. It'll say that its attack/shields are halved and change the unit's sprite, but they won't actually be halved.

The unit stats are only recalculated at end of turn unless the game explicitly does so after a spell...and after call chaos it does not. I'll add it to my list of stuff to do.

[Seravy]

I noticed I almost never bothered to research Warp Lightning in my last few games. so I thought I'll look at the effectiveness of that spell again.

In all cases
Doom Bolt = 10 damage, equal to 33 attack, 0.825 attack/MP

Target armor = 0-1
Lightning Bolt = 35,  1.4 attack/MP
Warp Lightning = 66, 2.2 attack/MP
-Warp Lightning is much superior here but nothing in the game has this low armor.

Target armor = 2-3
Lightning Bolt = 34,  1.36 attack/MP
Warp Lightning = 55, 1.83 attack/MP
WL is still better, but only the weakest enemies have this low armor, and it's rarely needed to use direct damage spells on them. Good to take out magicians and bowmen I guess, but Flame Strike does that job better?

Target armor = 4-5
Lightning Bolt = 33, 1.32 attack/MP
Warp Lightning = 45, 1.5 attack/MP
Most mid tier units belong here, WL is slightly more effective against them, but not by much. These units are usually still easy to dispose of without using spells and the difference is not really enough to justify researching a rare spell.

Target armor = 6-7
Lightning Bolt = 32, 1.28 attack/MP
Warp Lightning = 36, 1.2 attack/MP
At this point warp lightning is less cost-effective, and the overall damage dealt is only marginally better. Most units you actually want to use nukes on belong to this group since weaker units are usually easy to kill in battle, or if they have multiple figures which is often the case, through fireball type effects.

target armor = 8-9
LB = 31, 1.24 attack/MP
WL = 28, 0.933 attack/MP
Warp Lightning is both less cost-effective and less damaging per use than Lightning Bolt so it's inferior.
Furthermore, both are less damaging per use than Doom Bolt, though LB is more damage/MP.

even higher armor
LB keeps being more cost-effective than Doom Bolt up to about 30 armor targets, after than Doom Bolt is clearly superior. However damage/casting of Doom Bolt is superior in this range. Both spells have a role and are well balanced.
WL at this point becomes less damaging than Fire Bolt and completely worthless.

I think Warp Lightning could still use a buff?

If it was strength 12 then

Target armor = 4-5
Lightning Bolt = 33, 1.32 attack/MP
Warp Lightning = 55, 1.83 attack/MP
Meaning WL has a significant advantage over LB on the typical mid tier units this way.

Target armor = 6-7
Lightning Bolt = 32, 1.28 attack/MP
Warp Lightning = 45, 1.5 attack/MP
WL is still ahead quite a bit, and worth using on these units

target armor = 8-9
LB = 31, 1.24 attack/MP
WL = 36, 1.2 attack/MP
WL is roughly even in this range, so it isn't an improvement against high end or heavily armorer units, as intended.

Overall, I feel the 12 strength would be more balanced? The intended role of this spell is to deal massive damage to lower armor units, but as is the armor has to be so low the spell is too limited and rarely useful?

[Nelphine]

I'm not sure even that is worth using over lightning bolt. How many very low armour units are that have enough health that lightning bolt or fireball aren't good enough to take them out? And since you want lightning bolt or doom bolt for higher armor targets, is it really worth a very rare slot for something that's only a tiny bit better?
I'd prefer if warp lightning targeted two units - not a full aoe like flame strike, but just cast, target unit, deal damage then target another unit deal damage. (And even in this case you might want to raise the strength to 11.)

[GermanJoey]

The other thing that WL has going for it is lower damage variance due to being composed of a multitude of smaller strikes... although, ironically, that's not very fitting for the "Chaos" realm. It's definitely not worth 1600 research points, unless you got unlucky enough to not get lightning bolt in your research book.

An idea: would it be possible to make it apply Warp Creature in addition to the damage effect? That would at least make it more interesting than just "slightly more damage for some situations." That would also make it sometimes desirable to use against higher-armor targets, even if Lightning Bolt did more raw damage, in order to get all 3 WC effects.

[Seravy]

An idea: would it be possible to make it apply Warp Creature in addition to the damage effect? That would at least make it more interesting than just "slightly more damage for some situations." That would also make it sometimes desirable to use against higher-armor targets, even if Lightning Bolt did more raw damage, in order to get all 3 WC effects.

Probably somewhere between hard and impossible. I considered to have the same trigger on unit attacks before but it's not that trivial. You have to perform an entire resistance roll, with save modifiers (hero/spell itsef) and resistance modifiers (at least there is a function call for this one) then apply the effect.
(I obviously won't do it without a resistance roll as WC includes "resistance =0" among the effects so it could kill any unit if paired with something like exorcise or even black sleep.)
I rather have the "more damage" because, surprisingly - very much how Death lacked it - Chaos also lacks it. Flame Strike is multi target. Doom Bolt is defense ignoring but the least cost effective in the game in generic cases. It's not what I would want to use against a halberdier or wraith or chimera. So WL would be "THE" highest rarity generic purpose Chaos nuke, as very rares also don't have one : Disintegrate is not a damage effect, and Call Chaos is again multitarget. It's weird that an uncommon is the best spell for dealing raw damage in the realm best at doing that. (and btw Reaper Slash also does more damage than Lightning Bolt so chaos isn't the best damage dealer on single target unless WL gets better)

[zitro1987]

The 'Warp Lightning' analysis uses incorrect math and gives the impression it deals fewer damage point than it actually does. Improving the effect from 11 to 12 makes it overpowered. The actual damage at '11' may be closer to the miscalculated '12' in this post.

See the Master of Magic manual's appendix of attack to shield calculations.

Note: Chimeras are the weakest uncommon on cost per power basis. 6 upkeep is overkill for an 8resistance unit, statistics poorer than a 'rare', and lack of abilities. I suggest 5 upkeep and either a 20 cost reduction or a +1 poison or melee or armor.

[GermanJoey]

I just finished a game using Chaos last night, and they don't seem wrong. Seravy's numbers are about what I had noticed empirically - that there wasn't a noticeable damage difference between L and WL when I cast it on the same units. I actually wouldn't have even expected WL to come out ahead anywayers.

So, if you think that there's a mistake, you should describe what it is specifically.

[Seravy]

The 'Warp Lightning' analysis uses incorrect math and gives the impression it deals fewer damage point than it actually does. Improving the effect from 11 to 12 makes it overpowered. The actual damage at '11' may be closer to the miscalculated '12' in this post.

See the Master of Magic manual's appendix of attack to shield calculations.

There is no such data in the appendix of the Manual.Pdf.
Do you mean Appendix F in the Strategy Guide?
That's a bit...hard to use. I know a better way, I'm gonna simulate the rolls and output the result.

here we go, attached. I should have started with this.

Code:

program warplightning;
var  i,j,k,l,m,n : integer;
    t : text;
    r : real;
    dmg : longint;
function roll : boolean;
begin
if random(10)<3 then roll:=true else roll:=false;
end;
begin
randomize;
assign (t,'lightning.txt');
rewrite(t);
for i:=0 to 30 do begin
writeln(t,'-----------------------------');
writeln(t,i,' DEFENSE');
writeln(t,'-----------------------------');

{ firebolt }
dmg:=0;
for j:=1 to 10000 do begin
l:=0;
for k:=1 to 24 do if roll then inc(l);
if i>=1 then for k:=1 to i do if roll then dec(l);
if l<0 then l:=0;
dmg:=dmg+l;
end;
writeln(t,'Fire Bolt :',dmg/10000:5:2,' damage,',dmg/100000:4:2,' damage/MP');


{ Lightningbolt }
dmg:=0;
for j:=1 to 10000 do begin
l:=0;
for k:=1 to 35 do if roll then inc(l);
if i>=2 then for k:=1 to (i div 2) do if roll then dec(l);
if l<0 then l:=0;
dmg:=dmg+l;
end;
writeln(t,'Lightning Bolt :',dmg/10000:5:2,' damage,',dmg/250000:4:2,' damage/MP');

{ WARP }
for m:=8 to 12 do begin
dmg:=0;
for j:=1 to 10000 do for n:=1 to m do begin
l:=0;
for k:=1 to n do if roll then inc(l);
if i>=2 then for k:=1 to (i div 2) do if roll then dec(l);
if l<0 then l:=0;
dmg:=dmg+l;
end;
writeln(t,'Warp Lightning ',m,' :',dmg/10000:5:2,' damage,',dmg/250000:4:2,' damage/MP');
end;

end;
close(t);
end.

Edit : There was a mistake, I left the cost of WL at 25.
These are the correct results.

WL 11 breaks even with LB at defense 8-9.
WL 12 breaks even with LB at defense 10-11.

WL 11 is 13% better than LB on 6-7 defense targets.
WL 12 is 36% better.

I think WL 12 is the way to go.


  LIGHTNIN.TXT (Size: 12.01 KB / Downloads: 0)