AI Planar Travel

[Seravy]

Let's see...

I. I'd want the spell to produce zero and still cost maintenance if the player is in 2 wars and has neutral relation to the others.

II. I'd want the spell to pay for itself, but not produce any advantage whatsoever if the player is in 1 war and neutral with 3 others.

III. I'd want the spell to produce research around a Sage's Guild if the player is all neutral, or is in 1 war but has 1 high relation ally. Note that it still has maintenance and casting cost, so the net gain is still only as good as a Library - barely better than Nature's Eye.

IV. I'd like the max amount to be no greater than 18 RP net gain - which probably requires producing 24 to account for the cost and maintenance. This would require the player to only have allies.

One special case we should consider is, how we want the spell to work if the player is not in wars because they already killed everyone else except allies. I think this takes time, and requires the player to skip using the spell during the uncommon tier - by the time they eliminate the other players, the game will be at rares or very rares, and this bonus will no longer be a significant advantage. So it'd be a secondary Enlightenment, with a much weaker effect (Enlightenment can produce up to 50 RP per city and costs less to cast and maintain) meaning it's not a problem.

[Seravy]

For the calculations, I'll assume wars are -80, alliances are +80, neutrals are 0 relation.

I. implies the spell should be producing 0 RP at relation = -40 or below.
II. implies the spell should be producing RP = upkeep at -20.
III. implies the spell should be producing 12 at +0, and that upkeep<6, probably at most 4.
IV. implies RP = 24 at a +100 relation.


So, it needs to produce
-40 : 0
-20 : 4
+0 : 12
+100 : 24

This doesn't look linear, unless we assume there are caps on both sides.
In which case we get 12+Relation/2.5, capped at +0 and +24. This would yield 0 at -30 average relation instead of -40, and the max amount at +30 instead of +100.
I'm not too happy with that, but we don't need this much accuracy for every point in the graph.
Let's say we want the most accuracy at -40, and +0, so that would mean 12+Relation/3.33, which would also mean the bonus caps out at an average +40 relation. That's acceptable - at that much relation you can get an Alliance in most cases, which causes the relation to max out for "free". At -20 it would be producing 6 - 2 more than the maintenance but considering the casting cost and research cost, that's still bad enough to be not worth using at all.

So the spell should be :

Altar of Peace
Cost 120
Maintenance 4 mana
Produces 12+0.3*(average relation with all contacted wizards) each turn, but a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 24.

[Seravy]

Attempting to replace the graphics of Astral Gate crashes the tweaker. This is the same problem that prevented me from adding new graphics for Uranus' Blessing.

Until ILSE fixes the tweaker, or someone explains the structure of that file to replace the data myself, I cannot proceed.

[Nelphine]

I don't think you need to replace the graphic. It still looks magical and blue is usually peaceful.

[Seravy]

Yeah but it clearly looks like a gate, not an altar...

Well, good news, I was able to do it. I copied the data of Altar of Battle in the LBX to the place where the tweaker tried to instead the image but failed. Then I made a tool to replace a list of bytes with other bytes, to change the colors. So now we have the same altar, but the carpet is light blue instead of red, and the aura around it is pink, not blue. Which looks way more peaceful.

   

I'll try to do the same for Uranus' Blessing albeit unsure what color we want the spell to grant to the city ground.

[zitro1987]

I like the new formula and the graphic

[Seravy]

Done implementing the new spell.
Reduced the trade priority of Planar Travel to 5 to match other spells the AI cannot cast.
Maps have 9 towers.

Next is to decide what the AI should do with its Life uncommon starting picks, as Astral Gate is now out. I'm tempted to say pick the new spell instead of it : it is meant as a replacement to give Life AI an early advantage (instead of settling the other plane).

[Nelphine]

It's going to be ridiculously good for early game, so yes I agree. :P

[Seravy]

Added it like this :

Code:

; Life guaranteed UNCOMMON #1 : Stream of Life if 8+ Life books
; Life guaranteed UNCOMMON #2 : Altar of Peace if 8+ Life books
mov si,3
call getbooks
cmp ax,8
jl notstream
mov ax,084h
call AISpell
mov ax,08Bh
call AISpell
notstream:
; Life guaranteed UNCOMMON #3 : Prayer
mov ax,08Ch
call AISpell
; Life guaranteed UNCOMMON #4 : Altar of Peace if at least lawful, or having at least 5 Chaos or Sorcery books
mov si,2 ; Chaos
call getbooks
cmp ax,5
jge peacealtar
mov si,1 ; Sorcery
call getbooks
cmp ax,5
jge peacealtar
mov ax,4C8h
imul di
mov bx,ax
cmp word ptr [bx+6918h],4
jl notaltar
peacealtar:
mov ax,08Bh
call AISpell
notaltar:
; Life guaranteed UNCOMMON #5 : Divine Order if Death and Chaos books<2
mov si,2 ; Chaos
call getbooks
cmp ax,2
jge noorder
mov si,4 ; Death
call getbooks
cmp ax,2
jge noorder
mov ax,87h
call AISpell
noorder:
; Life guaranteed UNCOMMON #6 : Stream of Life if Peaceful
mov ax,4C8h
imul di
mov bx,ax
cmp word ptr [bx+6918h],5
jnz notstream2
mov ax,084h
call AISpell
notstream2:
; Life guaranteed UNCOMMON #7 : Unicorns if not Giant Spiders and not Gargoyles and not Cockatrices and not Great Lizard
; and not Shadow Demons and not Werewolves
mov ax,0Eh
call spellpicked
or ax,ax
jnz notunicorn
mov ax,5Fh
call spellpicked
or ax,ax
jnz notunicorn
mov ax,11h
call spellpicked
or ax,ax
jnz notunicorn
mov ax,14h
call spellpicked
or ax,ax
jnz notunicorn
mov ax,0ADh
call spellpicked
or ax,ax
jnz notunicorn
mov ax,0B4h
call spellpicked
or ax,ax
jnz notunicorn
mov ax,88h
call AISpell
notunicorn:
; Life guaranteed UNCOMMON #8 : Resurrection
mov ax,85h
call AISpell

The only real remaining question is, whether it's worth picking instead of Prayer, or not. Probably not. Prayer is the insurance to make sure the human won't declare war (which would ruin the effectiveness of Altar of Peace) - without that, Life wizards are a pushover.
Maybe the 5 book requirements on Chaos and Sorcery could be set lower (4?), as is, only 7+5 wizards will have the required second uncommon pick plus the required books.

...wait, this will never pick Stream of Life, as being peaceful already spends the second pick on Altar of Peace instead. This will need improvements...

well, it's 3 am so time to sleep, post your suggestions meanwhile.

[Nelphine]

Altar of peace is better than stream of life for the AI. The AI already has growth bonuses, and other realms aren't noticeably badly off. They also have gold bonuses and rarely need the unrest reduction. The single biggest weakness of AI is that they research extremely slowly - this offsets that. This should be number 1, prayer/stream of life should be number 2 (I'd personally pick prayer as number 2, but see below).

I never EVER decide my war based on the enemy having prayer. It is simply not a gamechanger. Its no better than Guardian and I have never changed my strategy based on my opponent having Guardian or not. It literally doesn't make a difference to my overland play, it just makes my combats slightly more dangerous and so slows down my invasion. It's absolutely an amazing spell, but not a literal game changer. (Aether binding is a game changer. Aura of majesty is a game changer. Planar travel is a game changer. Prayer is simply amazing, but not a game changer.)

Even if it was a game changer, I wouldn't even know if they had prayer until I had already declared war. So, them having it does absolutely nothing to deter me from declaring war.