Test games played

[Nelphine]

Re: Nomads: You don't need to convince me. I just don't happen to like them - I don't consider any of their units strong enough to do anything, except horsebowmen, and those are pure early game. (A unit needs to be able to go toe to toe with rares, without anything that can be dispelled, or I don't consider it worthwhile, and be cheap enough to be mass produced. Nomads don't have enough figures to achieve that, except rangers; but they're too expensive.)

Re: Power: Stream of Life High Elves shouldn't put them THAT far ahead. ~35 from buildings (assuming EVERY city has parthenon/cathedral/wizards guild/heavenly light) and population 15 = ~40-45 power per city, plus cheating bonus of .. I don't think the chart is handy anywhere anymore, it used to be in game mechanics; can you put the current cheating bonus chart in game mechanics please? call it an extra 60% (is it that high?) on expert, brings it to, he needs 13 fully developed cities in 1410 to get there. Considering my problems with an AI only having ~12 cities (and they certainly weren't all fully developed - yes stream of life gets more population, but it doesn't magically buy multiple advanced buildings in every city; some were still hamlets!) and you agreeing that 12 cities isn't that bad for the AI in 1410, that means its much more likely he has the equivalent of 9 fully developed cities (probably ~14 cities total). That's only 600 power. So he needs to have 300 more power from nodes and misc. But then.. if he had strong relations with you, and everyone else was defeated, then altar of peace is 24 per city. By itself that makes up most of the missing, and toss in some lucky heroes with sage and heroism, and he might have had 500 dedicated research that he couldn't switch out, unlike most AI. Add in cheating bonus, and thats.. +30% research? So 650 research per turn. But you go to war with him too soon... altar of peace does nothing. Call it 2 years of that dedicated research.

So from 1410 to 1412 he earns 13000 research... that shouldn't break him out of rares, let alone research multiple very rares. Spell ward in 1415? Yeah that makes sense, but not 1411. And suppress magic would be even later.

Were you playing max nodes and he had like 8 nodes or something? Although.. even 4 nodes on good.. average 7 tiles.. 90 more power +60% cheating = 144 more power? I don't see that being high enough either. 8 on max? 300 power + 60% cheating = 480. Ok, if he actually had a lot of nodes and you were playing high or max power, that would do it.

[Seravy]

Well, I'm way past the early game now so I might as well load one of the older turn files and look at how many and what kinds of cities he had.

So, turn 100 (1408 June) he had an alliance with the other two wizards, no treaty and restless with me. Unsure but probably made contact only recently.
He has 14 cities. They have Altar of Peace and Stream of Life. Power base looks like it's about 400-450. Only about 6 cities have a wizards guild and he has 2 nodes.

Turn 150 (1412 July) he already has Spell Ward, Uranus' Blessing, and learns Holy Word in a few turns. 13 cities and 3 nodes. Power base about 800, but at this time I already conquered 4 of his better cities, which is as far as I got the whole game.

I was playing fair nodes and he didn't have that many. However it's very possible he had the Altars from like 1405 to 1410+ and while I had no contact with him, he easily got the max 24 each, so like 240+ a turn times 60, 14400 from only that. 14400 plus whatever he spent from power and his research buildings is more than enough to break out of uncommons, get enough rares for a very rare to show up, and then get spell ward. He has 5+4 books, so only 5 rares plus Arcane. He needs to research just two to see very rares, if he already got all the uncommons.

So overall I think this is caused by the Altar, combined with low rares from 2 realms (5+4 is the second lowest books the AI can have) and ofc the AI research order which prioritizes Spell Ward very high (roughly 2/3 of the colored rares are before, 1/3 are after, however all three Arcane rares are after.). So in this particular game, he had to pick Lionheart, Wind Walking, and Uranus's Blessing before it, but Holy Word after and I haven't seen either but the last one must be either of the two healing spells which are both after. He didn't get the summons, city buffs or invulnerability.

Basically, I should have contacted him ASAP and declared war immediately to slow research or started conquering there. Funny, I started in the middle so it was a 50-50 shot to go in the right direction, but I ended up on the wrong continent. With the starting settlers you don't have the freedom to keep scouting, you have to use them on the first place that's habitable...

[Nelphine]

Right, and early uranus' blessing gives him the opportunity to actually cast enough spells to use the early spell ward.

Honestly, I think it simply proves altar of peace is doing its job. However, I'm not sure that's a good thing, as it's a fairly hefty trap - both because if you get too many wars it actually costs power, and because it's not obvious at all how much benefit it's giving the AI.

I'd suggest changing it from 0-24, to something like 5-18 (maybe even 6-16?) Remove the trap of too many wars, and don't let it take the AI so far ahead without warning the human.

[Nelphine]

Alternatively, what if detect magic also showed what your opponent was researching? Probably no room to display that, possibly no way to code it even if you could display it, and I'd want to delay when you get that ability until late rare (so it would probably need a 2000-4000 research cost), but the number of times we've asked each other 'if only we knew what the AI was researching at this stage!'...

[Bahgtru]

Or what they have already researched. It's painful to have to keep in mind every past spell exchange proposal for each of them and, even if you bother to do so, that only provides info on their worst spells.

[Nelphine]

Ehhh I think that much info would be too much.

Which probably means showing current research would be too much. Being surprised, and adapting, is definitely part of the game.

On the other hand civ and orion let you see what they've researched.. hmm...

I dunno I like the idea that remembering and planning sets players apart, but at the same time it's a game, and encouraging a spreadsheet to remember things might not be great...

However, I don't think there's anywhere available to possibly list ai research even if we wanted to. Too many possibilities and no available  display spot for 200+ data elements, let alone one with a good way of presenting them.

[zitro1987]

I think from experience that AI bonuses might need to get more and more restrained given the improved AI and the balance issues involving AI multipliers.

I suggest something like this:

Growth (A) O. Skill © Production(E) Gold(0) Power(2) Research (4) Upkeep (8)
Easy          75 100  75  90   75   75 100
Normal      90 100  90 100 100 100  80
Fair         100   80 100 100 100 100 65
Advanced 100 70 110 120 125 120 50
Expert      120 60 140 150 150 140 40
Master     130  55 160 175 175 150 35
Lunatic     133 50 175 190 225 180 30

[Nelphine]

My game is going slowly... September 1414 and Raven has cast the first very rare - seismic mastery. So he and Jafar are now friends, and raven can now earthquake all my cities on myrror.

My army strength is higher than all 3 AI combined, particularly because raven is at war with sss'ra and his stacks of adamantium and mithril hordes kill everything in sight.

With seismic mastery and several of sss'ra's cities, raven now has more than 95% of my power production. 

But I've researched high prayer, supreme light, and about to finish archangel, and have two global enchantments still to research though I don't know which ones. *Crossing fingers for crusade*

However.. if raven gets an alliance with Jafar (seems likely, they both have aura of majesty), then I'll need to worry about dispelling waves and disjunctions. Admittedly I mostly dont care, but I may need random buffs in order to defeat roaming doomstacks. I've just finished building my last slinger garrison, but it hasn't yet arrived.

Jafar has enough storm giants he might be a problem. But he's not the one who needs to use plane shift! Sss'ra can't do anything to me he's too busy with raven.

Raven has tried to take one of my Chaos nodes 6 times. I have a single airship guarding it, and so far I've successfully killed every unit he's sent at me, a total of over 2 dozen adamantium and mithril hordes, as well as some shaman.


No war with raven yet, but I assume he's got plane shift now, so I'm going to declare war on him when my last slinger Garrison arrives. Hoping to do that before an alliance with Jafar.

Although, if I do get crusade, I have a feeling that 4 slingers will be such high strategic strength that even full 9 unit doomstacks won't be able to attack my cities.

[Nelphine]

Huh. Interesting turn of events.

Raven has such high strategic strength compared to Sss'ra (adamantium in most of his cities, specifically.. orc hordes... + nature summons, mainly gorgons; vs high men without adamantium, and unicorns and chimera), that by July 1415, Sss'ra has lost 12 cities, and only has 4 cities left.

However, Sss'ra has got call of the void, so I get to see an AI use that on another AI! Cool!

I decide I don't want Sss'ra to die (ok, fine, I didn't get crusade, and Sss'ra should get some life very rares), so I give him... like.. 20 spells. The only reason I give him so many is I'm trying to give him Archangel so he has at least a CHANCE of surviving. His strategic strength is just awful. And apparently he missed lionheart and holy weapon and altar of battle, so that's not helping, but he has those now!)

I doubt it will be enough though. Losing 12 cities in less than 10 turns? I'm shocked at the speed Raven has been moving, so I'm expecting Sss'ra to be defeated. I could cheese it and surround Sss'ra's fortress with 8 spearmen so Raven can't get to it, but a) I don't think I can get there in time (ok, I easily could, simply by taking Jaer and splitting up my doomstack), and b) his research would still suck and I would never get Crusade anyway. SIGH.

I'm also considering going to war with Raven. I've got my garrisons, so I don't think raven can actually hurt me, unless he happens to attack me with a stack full of guardian wind, but I somehow doubt that's high on list of offensive doomstack buffs. And even then, I'm reasonably confident my garrisons would kill anything less than 7+ gorgons.

[Nelphine]

Gave up on that game. Nothing raven or jafar have can threaten me, and I can kill Sss'ra in literally one turn.

Starting a game where I'm intending to go for adamantium slingers, but I have 10 books: Myrran, Omniscient, 3 life, 5 death, 2 nature.

2 Myrran Opponents: Rjak (Myrran, Guardian, Specialist, Charismatic, Ruthless Theurgist, 7 Death), Sss'ra (Myrran, Charismatic, Maniacal Theurgist, 5 Death, 4 Life, 1 Sorcery). Opening turns went well (6 halfling cities, 3 on adamantium; 1 troll city; 2 dark elf cities).

Sss'ra declared war on me by taking my better dark elf city, but I've taken one of his cities. I'm starting to build slingers now, and expect that I'll only need a stack of 4 or so to destroy everything my enemies have, although I have yet to see any actual doomstacks, so I have no idea what Sss'ra might actually do.