When does it choose target? Is it possible it was a triggering target (the other AI had globals cast at the time) that wasn't human? (Obviously if its the picked target then this wouldn't matter, but I figure I'd ask.)
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SORCERY Realm
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It should show the message directly after stealing an enchantment if the "target player" variable is player 0.
Like this : Code: mov ax, [bp+var_4] ; Targeted player
I'm not sure I like how this realm is designed currently.
To put it simply, it's fairly balanced form a player's perspective...but not from an AI's. Yes, "you have to kill this wizard while it's not too strong because Sorcery very rares are that good" works to an extent...but only to an extent. If all 4 enemy wizards play Sorcery what do you do? Also, Chaos already has this role - weak early, strong late. Sorcery is the same but on steroids and the main problem is, that covers 40% of the realms in the game. So in most games there will be a set order in which you have to take the wizards out, unless, everyone has sorcery and chaos books in large numbers in which case you just lose (or win very early, if you can kill all 4 in time). The main problem with this is, it makes late strategies suffer. Unless they are as good as Sorcery (they aren't), they must at least defeat all Sorcery wizards first. Which means getting into wars earlier than preferred and fighting Sorcery usually costs a lot and is painful. Aside from this, the very definition of the realm is...just wrong. While other realms have their own areas they are good at, Sorcery gets "Magic". In a game about magic, where everything is magic. But not just "magic" but the ability to prevent magic. There isn't really anything less fun in a game than "oh, and you, you don't get to play, I'm the one playing." - and even less in a single player game where the AI is the one that gets to "enjoy" the game while the human realizes none of their spells will ever be successfully cast. (Those who played MtG probably know how it feels to play against a deck with 80% counterspells. Now imagine if the person on the other side is a machine.) The realm is this way because this is what we inherited from the original game, and so far I had no better idea (and there are limits to what can be done unfortunately). So before thinking more about what can or cannot be done, who agrees Sorcery is not good for the game as it is now due to the reasons above?
September 2nd, 2017, 21:09
(This post was last modified: September 2nd, 2017, 21:29 by zitro1987.)
I have some issues with sorcery, but I also have some issues with death (the units having some nonsensical immunities like 'cold'), but I'll list my general problems with sorcery:
_Focus Magic allowing 4 shots (not relevant to topic though) _Spell Blast is very frustrating in the hands of an AI, and I rarely use the spell myself. If AI has resource bonus, they come out ahead. This is probably my biggest issue with the realm. _No uncommon overland summons, while the 'common' summon is too resistant-dependent and slow (2mv) _Skill income can get over-the-top, and it's not easy to spend it for mono-realm until you get certain 'rare' spells _Maybe a little too much 'conditional/strategic' type of spells in uncommon and rare tiers ... maybe even very rare too. If we sort of preserve the theme of the realm, these could be partial solutions: _Spell Blast could be eliminated altogether. _Move 'gargoyles' to sorcery (which fits 'heroes of might and magic' in a way), replacing spell blast, but it might be too radical of an idea to sell to you (and would mean thinking of a new chaos spell). This should solve lots of AI problems and allow them to play with something. Give it 6 melee and 2 upkeep. _Move Nagas to uncommon, add more melee, a bit more poison, more hp/resist/armor, 3mv, and give them 20 caster or some cool set of abilities. That means having a new common spell, which could be maybe some city enchantment, something positive to speed up empire with settlers, I don't know, something that would help you early on. * come up with an entirely new uncommon sorcery spell, preferably one that is fairly user-friendly and easy to spam. If not a summon, maybe another kind of curse as an instant spell, possibly impacting city production. Or maybe a 'blizzard'-like spell that damages summons in a target square, or maybe a unit enchantment that adds 20 caster to any NON-CASTER (for more magic mayhem). Maybe bring back a 'word of recall' that only works for heroes or some major other limitation? Maybe bring back wind mastery, but give it more oomph? _Uranus Blessing being more +power oriented, than the +7 skill. _Time Stop can be rather excessive, might be better as a 'play 3 consecutive turns' global.
September 2nd, 2017, 21:43
(This post was last modified: September 2nd, 2017, 21:44 by Nelphine.)
I actually was thinking the other day that I wish spell blast was arcane, but had a far higher overland cost (something like 50 + half the mana cost of whatever you blasted; it would cast whenever you finished the 50, then use up the rest out of your current turn's overland casting skill, and if it would require more than that, that wouldn't do anything. So if you had 150 skill, and you blast summon champion after the target wizard has spent 590 mana, then you would instant cast it (since you have the 50 base), and then you would 'use' up to 295 more overland skill, but since you only have 150 (and have already spent 50), you would only use up 100 more; the other 195 would be ignored. But if you had 500 overland casting skill, then you would spend the 50 base +295 for the blast leaving you with 155 casting skill for the rest of that turn.)
I'm aware that's probably not doable, but I was thinking 'yeesh, the game is just SO different when the AI is sorcery, and I feel like these spells are balanced around the possibility that the enemy will blast them; similarly with dispelling wave - it just completely changes the game and how good buffs are. And I feel like it's 'no dispelling wave? then buffs win the game. dispelling wave? then buffs are useless.' which is just overly binary, in my opinion, in a way that detracts from gameplay and enjoyment. Time Stop I already think the AI simply shouldn't be allowed to use; even 3 turns is a freaking long time in late game when it would be cast. This has nothing to do with game balance, this is purely a player enjoyment thing. So I don't think Time Stop needs to change mechanically, because it IS really cool when the human gets to use it. I also think sorcery is better at late game 'I win-ness' than chaos because of Aether Binding, Uranus' Blessing, and the fact that sorcery units get nifty abilities, so the AI can actually use them, while Chaos just summons and forgets.. which aren't really scary. Big piles of attack and hp just don't do much in late game when there are a million combat spells you can use to overcome them. So sorcery has spells from all tiers (focus magic, aether binding, uranus' blessing) that are extremely important for late game play, while chaos mostly just has tons of spells that obsolete each other (why would you ever use any chaos summon once you have any higher tier chaos summons? why would you use low tier chaos combat spells when you have higher ones? but that means that chaos has like 15-25 spells that end up just completely obsolete, noticeably more than any other realm.) Actually Chaos really feels to me like playing on hard mode. There are very few good synergies, and far too many spells that just completely render other ones useless, which when you only get limited spells, hurts. Sorcery, aside from the 5 spells mentioned above, actually feels like it's in a good place compared to the other realms. And even Aether Binding I don't think is a HUGE problem, although combined with dispelling wave or disjunction (or even mass numbers of spell casters with dispel magic) it turns a serious problem (the binaryness of dispels) into a critical problem. I actually like where naga are - it's nice to see a resist based unit early game (since even mid game most resist based things are mostly useless without a lot of prep). I waffle back and forth on the lack of uncommon summons. From a balance point of view I think it's fine, but I understand from an enjoyment point of view, it hurts replayability a lot.
September 2nd, 2017, 22:26
(This post was last modified: September 2nd, 2017, 22:32 by Nibiru.)
Certainly Sorcery has too many tools to deny other realms their strengths, it;s weak in direct damage but that doesn,t matter much since you can deny your opponent theirs.
Frankly, Sorcery should be skill starved so that its user would carefully consider which of his tools to use, giving it new spells that boost spell skill wasn,t very wise. Spell blast is too early and too cheap for the AI to spam, I would relace it with a Quick casting spell but then Sorcery already has some of the best buffs in the game.
All right, let's take a look at Sorcery in detail then. (Skipping spells that are definitely fine as they are)
Commons Floating Island - No problem with the spell itself, but this is the only possible creature we could turn into a new Sorcery summon. It would be sad to remove though, as it is a great spell to control the seas, fits the realm, and doesn't participate into the "counter all spells" problem. Guardian Wind - Missile attacks don't work. Rocks can go around it, magic too, so it's fine. Very limited power. Focus Magic - If we want Sorcery to be more competitive in the early game, this might need a lower cost. Zitro, I'm not sure what your problem with 4 ammo is. Is it too few or too many? Counter Magic - One of the unfun spells. Fortunately, it doesn't affect high rarity spells, and there is always a chance spells go through it, so it's not as powerful as it used to be in the original game. It also depletes and doesn't disappear unless it manages to counter a spell when at only 10 power, meaning a spell cheaper than that. It can be depleted intentionally by repeatedly casting cheap spells, at which point it ends up only blocking 30 skill for a cost of 70. Balanced now, in fact, I rarely ever cast it anymore. Maybe it's actually underpowered now? Does anyone still use it? Nagas - Being a waterwalking creature, I see why this is in sorcery but that's about it. Neither First Strike nor poison fits this realm. However, poison is definitely a common tier ability (as it stops working at 10 resistance and poison immunity is also available on a common spell), and I don't see any other possibility where to move it (Death already has some on Ghouls and being ranged it shouldn't be more. Chaos doesn't fit. Nature already has it on Spiders. Life, just no.), also it's a combo with Focus Magic so I have no choice but to say Nagas are fine as they are, EXCEPT they need to cost less, and/or have better melee attacks. 2 moves are fine, it isn't very good at combat, but speed 3 intercontinental movement from a common summon would be far too good...or maybe not? Floating Island does that anyway...at move 3 they would be faster scouts than magic spirits and sprites though, and FI can't enter the lairs to scout them, so it still is a huge deal. Uncommon Water Elemental - There is no way around it, Sorcery needs at least one uncommon creature if we want to position it away from being a "bad at early" realm. We already have the other 3 elementals but not this one. Water walking movement, fire immunity, weapon immunity, and sorcery ranged attacks, 1 figure, with acceptable melee and ranged stats. To have this however, we'll need to remove a spell, and remove a summoned creature, so it's far from trivial. AEther Binding - We already balanced out the amount of skill produced so that part is fine. Double dispel is not very fun, but this can be easily dispelled to protect own spells. The only thing that needs change is, it should have a lower recast rate from the AI, it still seems too high. Dispelling Wave - Already discussed a lot, this is a necessary evil. Buff stacking is overpowered otherwise. Using some buffs is still viable against it, just not many, 1-2 on a critical unit at best - or you can use spell locks. However, this does more than that. It also removes city buffs. Considering you might want to do that when relying on city curses, it's a nice extra feature that is a good combo with Chaos and Death magic, and I don't think removal of city buffs hurts anyone except pure Life all that much - I have seen the AI use it on my Stream of Life like, once in the whole game. Even for Life, you can still use the buffs if you don't overdo it - 2 spells per city should work well. However, the spell still doesn't stop here. It also removes combat global enchantments. I'm not sure if this part really is needed, albeit it doesn't hurt much as it costs more than the enchantment it removes unless multiples are being stacked. Overall, this is kinda unfun but at least not overpowered. Spell Lock - Prevents dispelling, but dispelling is unfun anyway so that's fine. Also protects units from being banished which is rarely a relevant effect. Conjure Roads - Being an economy boost, this really has no business being in Sorcery. It also cannot be used by the AI and looks bad due to affecting an 5x5 area. The best candidate for removal to add Water Elemental. Spell Blast - This clearly isn't good as is, but I have no idea how to change it. The desired goal is to be able to stop a selected few, significant threats, but right now it's able to stop anything. If I could, I would make this into a global enchantment with the effect "Pick 3 overland spells when this is cast. Those spells are automatically countered", but I can't do that for many reasons. It also took lots and lots of days of work to make this and Detect Magic work correctly for the AI and I don't want to lose that. The main problems : 1. While the player can dispel Detect Magic to prevent selective blasting of their spells, the AI recasts it too quickly. This can be solved by setting the Detect Magic priority even lower, probably drastically low. 2. Wizards that do not have the personality to spam this do so anyway. Already taken care of by making curse priority modifiers a percentage bonus to the base personality amount instead of a flat +X (where a +30 to a personality that normally has 5 completely breaks it) 3. The way to get around this is to instant-cast spells. However, this comes far too early to allow that. Could be solved by making it rare, but that requires making an existing rare into an uncommon. Rares Uranus's Blessing. We already agreed this needs to produce 4 skill instead of 7, but cost less and possibly produce more power. An interesting effect would be "all research producing buildings produce half of their research production as power", or we can just raise the bonus on Alchs and Amps. Invisibility - Can't use ranged attacks, penalized in melee, assuming it can even find the unit. Very powerful but probably not more than Invulnerability. Fighting against this is at least fun - can cause some nasty surprises without completely disabling the player's options. Safe. Magic Immunity - Seems too powerful and unfun at first sight but it isn't that bad. The player can still buff their own units, or summon creatures, or use spells that go around this (web, crack's call, Entangle, Terror, Black Prayer, etc), or in worst case, dispel it. Or simply target everything else with their spells, as this is a single target buff. Definitely more powerful against Death and Chaos than others but even they have options to fight it. Storm Giant If we are want the realm to be more balanced, this might need to be a bit stronger, honestly it's a bottom tier rare creature. Flying Fortress - Most realms have flying creatures to deal with it, albeit ranged is likely to fail due to invisibility/guardian wind/magic immunity. What makes it safe is combat spells which can kill the defenders even if units cannot. Very Rares Djinn - You either have web or this is almost unbeatable. It's superior at range and unreachable for melee units. It might even be enchanted by magic immunity. Fortunately, direct damage spells can kill it if not, or after dispelling if yes. A lower resistance might make it easier to deal with it, as Great Unsummoning no longer hits own creatures, there is no need for it to be 13. Spell Ward - unsure about this. It allows no spells in battle, no spells targeting the city overland, and summoned creatures are massively penalized. However, normal units generally aren't powerful enough to beat a Sorcery wizard's army especially without magic to support them. The already existing solution for this is using heroes (with artifacts), but Death and Chaos can't do that very well, if at all. An overwhelming force of 9 very rare creatures might work, as garrisons are usually weak enough - the AI doesn't use more than 2 summons in a city in most cases. A capital with this however, is outright unbeatable. If we had more Arcane spells to allow going around it, that would be nice but unfortunately that isn't the case. Creature Binding - If we rebalance the overpowered spells, we need to improve the weak ones. This should be able to target units with Illusions Immunity. Suppress Magic - Annoying, but high end spells are unaffected, and you are supposed to use those by the time the AI reaches this. Also, other AI will dispel it periodically, so you can time your cheap spells for that. So it only really is overpowered against players who are already losing. Spell Binding - This is just insane. Not only do others not get to use their globals, (which btw makes up 50% of Life and Chaos very rares!) but the Sorcery wizard gets to use them instead. However, stealing enchantments is very fitting the realm so idk what can be done with this. Time Stop - First of all, this is an amazing spell (for player use) and one of those big spells that makes the game what it is, so it has to stay in the game. The AI getting multiple turns in a row to attack is powerful, but acceptable - you have to prepare enough mana crystals to not run out and you're mostly ok, especially as they are spending theirs as well, so it ultimately isn't different from normal turns in that sense. Where things go wrong is that it allows casting overland spells during those extra turns, so it's a multiplier to casting skill. Let's do the math. Time Stop costs 1500. For each 200 mana afterwards, you gain skill equal to your casting skill but you also need the mana to use that skill. So for X mana, you gain S*(X-1500)/(200+S) casting opportunity. In case of 20000 mana crystals, that's 18500*S/(S+200). However, you also lose 1500 casting opportunity (the cost of the spell) If you spend that mana to raise your skill, each 2S mana increases your skill by one (yes, this is simplified and ignores S being raised during doing so). You also need mana to use this skill. Assuming the game lasts 100 more turns before it is over, to gain Y skill and use it all up, you need 100*Y+2*S*Y total mana. This Y skill over those turns grants you 100*Y casting opportunity. So assuming Time Stop is used in 20000 mana chunks, and the skill gained if raising it without the spell will be relevant for 100 turns, we have 18500*S/(S+200)-1500 casting opportunity for Time Stop and 20000*100/(2*S+100) without. One way to balance it better is changing the maintenance (the 200 in the first formula). Mnt Skill TS Not TS 200 / 100 / 4666 / 6666 200 / 200 / 7750 / 4000 300 / 100 / 3125 / 6666 300 / 200 / 5900 / 4000 400 / 100 / 2200 / 6666 400 / 200 / 4666 / 4000 At 400 maintenance, the spell is barely worth it for producing skill around 200, while at 200 mnt. it's massively profitable. The other way is to change the casting cost. Cost Skill TS Not TS 1500 / 100 / 4666 / 6666 1500 / 200 / 7750 / 4000 2000 / 100 / 4000 / 6666 2000 / 200 / 7000 / 4000 2500 / 100 / 3333 / 6666 2500 / 200 / 6250 / 4000 As it can be seen the maintenance has a higher impact, and it also works better as the AI pays full maintenance on this spell, but reduced casting cost. It also results in fewer consecutive AI turns. Question is, where do we want the point where it gets profitable to use? 100 skill is the current which seems low. Note that all of these calculations assume the spell is used without combat. If combat casting is present, it will expire fairly quickly as combat spells eat up the mana, so one way to prevent the AI from abusing this too massively is entering war with them.
September 3rd, 2017, 08:28
(This post was last modified: September 3rd, 2017, 08:41 by zitro1987.)
More thoughts:
_Floating Island - I really want this spell to stay. It's so unique and versatile, helping early to mid game particularly. _Nagas having 1 or 2 more stats (whether in melee, hp, armor, or movement) may make them a bit more competitive. Even at 3 movement, it's comparable to a water-walking war bear. *Another option is making them cost less, with 1 upkeep and maybe 70 mana. _I consider 'Counter Magic' to be underwhelming as its power dissipates after each counter by 10 points, often spending more mana than the countered enemy. Suggest 10->5 for power dissipation. _Aether Binding - what if it doesn't double 'dispelling wave' power? Just dispel/disenchant/disjunction? _Dispelling Wave - it can be a problem with aether binding, see above. _Water Elemental - a multi-purpose melee/range unit with high 'to hit' for 'focus magic' combos might be cool. However, it does seem similar to storm giant and we have the problem of needing to remove a unit. * This may be an odd choice, but what if we remove 'phantom warriors' or 'phantom beast' to allow 'Water Elemental' ? * That's the reason I suggested moving gargoyles to sorcery. _I can live with losing the 'magic roads' spell _Spell Blast - I didn't know detect magic encouraged the AI to use it well ... maybe I'll try disjunction when I encounter this problem. _Storm Giant - We can have its cost match stone giant's ... they'd be roughly equal in power if so _Not a big fan of flying fortress, but it doesn't seem to cause gaming problems _Reducing resistance seems like a good choice. The unit is incredibly cost-effective and hard to stop at times. _Spell ward's 'to hit penalty' is too harsh, maybe it could be -2 ? _Creature Binding capable of targeting illusion immunity is a good bonus. The spell is quite good as it often works if mixed with 'mind storm', allowing you to grab an AI's summon. A focus magic djinn can cast creature binding, so within the realm, this spell is simply not weak. _Spell Binding - This spell costs less than some global enchantments. I think that's a problem - could be increased up to 1,500. it'd be interesting if there's a mana drain effect equal to the global enchantment cost (so you cast the spell, then lose an additional thousand), or inherit a doubled maintenance cost. I don't know, something that adds to the cost of the spell. _On second thought, Time Stop might be fine, but it's unfun when an AI casts it. It's also problematic for players that play in small doses and can't save. _I like the +3 range/+15mp of focus magic, even the thrown to ranged effect. I just dislike the +4 shots for melee that make certain units incredibly hard to deal early on.
September 3rd, 2017, 08:52
(This post was last modified: September 3rd, 2017, 09:30 by Nelphine.)
Honestly, I'd be quite happy losing phantom beast to get water elemental. But it needs to be an overland summon, and none of the other elementals are overland summons, so I'm not sure a water elemental is appropriate.
I agree with upping the strength of storm giants. Aether Binding HAS to be high priority, due to how amazing the skill production is. Its an economic spell thats frankly amazing, and also randomly affects dispels. The dispel part is obnoxious though, when combined with disjunction or dispelling wave. I somewhat like what zitro suggested, but honestly, I would want it to ONLY apply to dispel magic. Speaking of: absolutely spell blast and dispelling wave are required.. But those two spells are why sorcery is unfun. They ARE the problem (with Aether Binding and Time Stop making issues worse). Balance has nothing to do with it. If you're trying to fix the thematic enjoyment problems of the realm, those two spells need to be changed, and then everything else needs to change to balance it. Speaking of, for me sorcery wizards are not 'kill them before very rares', which is more the realm of chaos. They are 'kill them as soon as I see either spell blast or dispelling wave, because then I can't use many of the fun spells at my disposal' (which is worst if I'm life, but affects me no matter what realm I play as) which just makes the game unfun. |
