1.51 release candidate!

[LittleDragon]

Thanks for all the hard work you have put into this Seravy! I just recently installed MoM for nostalgic reasons and your patch improves the game a ton.

How do you actually do the patches? Have you written down anywhere how the sausage is made? Is it just reverse engineering the binaries and hex editing or do you have access to the source? Any pointers how to get started if I'd like to give patching a shot?

Thanks again!

[Seravy]

Is it just reverse engineering the binaries and hex editing or do you have access to the source?

This. No source. I suggest using IDA. I can upload my IDA files with my comments and named variables if you want.

[LittleDragon]

Is it just reverse engineering the binaries and hex editing or do you have access to the source?

This. No source. I suggest using IDA. I can upload my IDA files with my comments and named variables if you want.

Okay cool! The IDA files would help for sure

I still need to play the game more to get better idea about what could use fixing. Maybe looking into the difficulty levels could be a start.

Thanks again!

[Seravy]

Here, these are my latest IDA files (also included ILSE's files) :
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vyEPmh...rQIB3w-LbT

[LittleDragon]

Here, these are my latest IDA files (also included ILSE's files) :
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vyEPmh...rQIB3w-LbT

Thanks, I'll try them out during the weekend 

[Seravy]

RC7 is up for download :

New patches up to W658
Removed M474 - longer wizard names, as it caused problems (longer name didn't fit screens and messed up display very badly sometimes)
New optional patch M659 - 11 book starts disabled for both human and AI. Please test, I think I included everything needed but I might have missed some source that gives a player (or AI) more books.

Unfortunately 4 patches (647,649,653,657) weren't compatible so they are in the Incompatible folder. Maybe if someone has nothing better to do they might tweak it to work outside CoM.

[FrancoK]

I'm back after years and I see you improved both CoM and MoM! 

Thank you for the great work Seravy!   

I suppose I can use saved games from 1.50 to test 1.51RC7, right? 


Some random stuff:

- There was a bug, when the player summons a creature close to the right border, sometimes the creature results outside the normal battlefield and the enemies "freeze" trying to reach it. I see W558FIX should solve it, but it does not, AFAIK.
- Now the AI defender moves units that cannot attack randomly. It happens some unit moves too low and disappear from the screen. Player cannot attack them, until they move up again. This did not happened before 1.50, however the unit never moved randomly, so the bug could have been already there.
- (minor) the word Possession is missing an 's' when you check the effects on a possessed unit during combat.
- I saw all Champions have Magic Immunity and Missile Immunity, but did not found the patch that does is. It was not this way, but Thorin, in the previous version.
- Alchemy retort gives also magic weapons to all unit produced by the wizard "as if an alchemist's guild were present in all of the wizard's towns"; however if a city is near a Mithril or Adamantium tile the unit's weapon is better. This does not happen.

Happy coding! 

[Seravy]

I suppose I can use saved games from 1.50 to test 1.51RC7, right?  

Unsure, I guess you can but it was way too many patches ago to remember.

- There was a bug, when the player summons a creature close to the right border, sometimes the creature results outside the normal battlefield and the enemies "freeze" trying to reach it. I see W558FIX should solve it, but it does not, AFAIK.

Tried and wasn't able to summon Phantom Warriors on those tiles. I need more instructions to reproduce this.

- Now the AI defender moves units that cannot attack randomly. It happens some unit moves too low and disappear from the screen.

Units shouldn't be able to move outside the walkable area, even if the AI mistakenly tries to do that. However recently we discovered that Earth to Mud changes all the tiles to walkable, by making the movement cost 6, even on tiles where it should be -1 (can't enter). Did you use that spell?
If yes, this bug was supposed to be fixed by W656FIX.TXT.
Also the defender should not move randomly when defending cities - but you didn't specify it was in a city so it probably wasn't.

- I saw all Champions have Magic Immunity and Missile Immunity, but did not found the patch that does is. It was not this way, but Thorin, in the previous version.

Couldn't reproduce, summoned 3 of them but none had this bug. Sounds like you had data corruption while testing. I really hope it's because the versions aren't compatible, otherwise we have a serious bug somewhere.

- Alchemy retort gives also magic weapons to all unit produced by the wizard "as if an alchemist's guild were present in all of the wizard's towns"; however if a city is near a Mithril or Adamantium tile the unit's weapon is better. This does not happen.

If I understand it correctly, this is not a bug. The Alchemy retort always gives you magical weapons, never mithril or adamantium. It has been like this forever. The retort descriptions says "gives all unit magical weapons", it does not say "as though it had an alchemist guild". (Are you using modified help files?)

[FrancoK]

I suppose I can use saved games from 1.50 to test 1.51RC7, right?  

Unsure, I guess you can but it was way too many patches ago to remember.

Ok, so I'll start all new games. 

- There was a bug, when the player summons a creature close to the right border, sometimes the creature results outside the normal battlefield and the enemies "freeze" trying to reach it. I see W558FIX should solve it, but it does not, AFAIK.

Tried and wasn't able to summon Phantom Warriors on those tiles. I need more instructions to reproduce this.

I sometimes use to summon Phant. War. to top right / bottom left when defending against slow units to stall the fight.
I quickly move the mouse on top right and click to select the location and sometimes the warriors are summoned half outside the screen.
Next turn, all enemy unit "move" to my warriors, but they do not walk/shoot, only stand still.
The key could be I move the mouse too fast?    

- Now the AI defender moves units that cannot attack randomly. It happens some unit moves too low and disappear from the screen.

Units shouldn't be able to move outside the walkable area, even if the AI mistakenly tries to do that. However recently we discovered that Earth to Mud changes all the tiles to walkable, by making the movement cost 6, even on tiles where it should be -1 (can't enter). Did you use that spell?
If yes, this bug was supposed to be fixed by W656FIX.TXT.
Also the defender should not move randomly when defending cities - but you didn't specify it was in a city so it probably wasn't.

It was a single flying hero attacking in some ruin  or on the road some 2 space moving units (bears in the ruin and orc cavalry on the road) with other units mixed in.
They scattered and one unit moved to the bottom of the screen and walked so down I could not click on them to attack.
After 1 or 2 moves they emerged and I was able to attack them.

As you mention it, in the city they move differently, BTW they used to always move in front of the "door", if a wall is present, but they not always do that, if attacked by the flying hero I used against the ruin. Sometimes when I kill the door unit, the others do not move to cover the entrance of the wall.
Maybe since the only attacker flies it is not useful to move?   

BTW A very smart improvement in the AI is when a flying unit do not attack an unit that cannot attack it.
Can you do the same with invisible units?
If 5 Giant Dragons attacks my wall-less city defended by a Nightblade, I let them run away to avoid being killed.
The AI could do the same, what do you think?

- I saw all Champions have Magic Immunity and Missile Immunity, but did not found the patch that does is. It was not this way, but Thorin, in the previous version.

Couldn't reproduce, summoned 3 of them but none had this bug. Sounds like you had data corruption while testing. I really hope it's because the versions aren't compatible, otherwise we have a serious bug somewhere.

I did not test the RC7 yet. I was reporting stuff from the previous version. Anyway you are right, it was a data corruption.
I was looking at the Paladin and noticed he had Magic and Missiles Immunities. I was looking to build a Misc Magic Item so I checked other heroes and all Champions did have both immunities, while "normal" heroes didn't.
To check if it was "standard" I saved the game and suicide attack an enemy group with 3 Champions and all of them had the same (Yellow Square, not the Gray one).
Then reloaded the game and created the Misc Magic Item.
After the spell finish I see my Champions do not have all the immunities, only the usual ones.
Loading the previous games show me the usual immunities.

- Alchemy retort gives also magic weapons to all unit produced by the wizard "as if an alchemist's guild were present in all of the wizard's towns"; however if a city is near a Mithril or Adamantium tile the unit's weapon is better. This does not happen.

If I understand it correctly, this is not a bug. The Alchemy retort always gives you magical weapons, never mithril or adamantium. It has been like this forever. The retort descriptions says "gives all unit magical weapons", it does not say "as though it had an alchemist guild". (Are you using modified help files?)

In MoM 1.20 Alchemy only give power/gold 1 to 1 bonus.
In MoM 1.31 they throw in quickly the magic weapons bonus. It is explained in the readme.txt file you get with the 1.31 patch, I took the description from it.  
In the manual the building Alchemist’s Guild is described the same way (it gives troops a +1 magic weapon,  Tech supp page 127), it is in the terrain description (Tech supp page 127) where the change is clear: "If city has an alchemist’s guild, all new units get magical adamantium weapons with +2 attack strength and defense bonuses;..." in the case of the adamantium.
Aaaaand SURPRiSE: they throw in a bug! They forgot to add the mithril / adamantium bonus for the skill.
I did already spoke with Kyrub and, while he agreed it could be a bug, the fixing was too difficult to implement.
So if you too find it too difficult to fix, no problem.  


EDIT:
found a way to cast Phantom Warriors on the edge
I was defending a city with Draconian troops (all flying) and cast a top right Phantom Warriors to lure them away from city.
Zombie and Minotaur felt for it, while a webbed Gorgon chased one of surviving Doom Drakes.
After the Phantom Warriors sacrifice Zombie and Minotaur headed to the city again, so I tried to see if I could find a way to cast Phantom Warriors over the edge on purpose.
It worked. How to do it.
Cast Phantom Warriors.
Move the mouse in the top right square you can use, then slowly move to the right, when the cursor become a red cross, move up, until the cursor in normal again; repeat until you reach nearly the right border.
Move up few pixels and click. The Phantom Warriors appear in a square not reachable by the enemies.

Interesting is also the fact Zombie and Minotaur moved to the city even after the enemy webbed my Drakes, using only Gorgon to chase one of them.

[img]     [/img]

[Seravy]

As you mention it, in the city they move differently, BTW they used to always move in front of the "door", if a wall is present, but they not always do that, if attacked by the flying hero I used against the ruin. Sometimes when I kill the door unit, the others do not move to cover the entrance of the wall.
Maybe since the only attacker flies it is not useful to move?

I don't remember the details but I'm guessing if the AI already decided to ignore walls, then it won't refill the gate either. I also don't think ranged units do that, only melee?
Either way I know I investigated that and found it's only done in cases where filling the gate wouldn't really help anyway.

Can you do the same with invisible units?

Caster of Magic has that feature but it's probably not compatible. I wonder if the flying units move backwards or just stay in place, because in CoM they also move backwards. In case of invisible (and speed) based stall, this is important - if the unit stays where it is near an enemy, it won't "disappear" and will still get attacked. In case of movement stall it's even more important - if you aren't actually moving, it doesn't matter who is faster, you can't avoid the enemy.

If you're interested, I can point you to the relevant parts of the code (or even send you the sources) and you can try to make a 1.51 compatible version out of it.

I did already spoke with Kyrub and, while he agreed it could be a bug, the fixing was too difficult to implement.
So if you too find it too difficult to fix, no problem.

While not trivial, it seems to be possible to fix, but I'm unsure it's a bug. The patch notes are pretty inaccurate, at the very least they had it wrong for Raise volcano as well. (it said they make ores when they revert, when the feature was implemented for when they were created instead)
I rather not try to guess which person was the lead designer at the company, the one who wrote the readme files or the one who made the coding... probably neither. So we have no way of knowing if it's a bug or not. When in doubt, I usually consider the ingame help text the most official as it must have been seen by the most people working on the game, as well as playtesters. As the ingame text matches what the retort does, this is likely not a bug.
However the full text in the readme file reads :
"The Alchemist special ability allows all of your new normal
units built to be equipped with +1 magical weapons, as if an
alchemist's guild were present in all of the wizard's towns."

That specifically says magic weapons, not "magic, mithril or adamant weapons", or "improved weapons". So in my interpretation it means only that part of the alchemist guild's effect applies.

For the combat summoning issue it would be nice if you posted a screenshot showing which tile it is exactly. I don't think the speed of the mouse has anything to do with it, unless the target the game checks for validity isn't the one actually used and there is a timelag. Which would be a really stupid way to implement it and we'd have seen a lot of other problems that way (like hitting own units with fire bolts when trying to target an nearby enemy).