Dealing with curses

[MilesBeyond]

A problem I've run into in 14 player games is that as the game goes on you just get constantly bombarded with curses - Chaos Rift and Earthquake are the big ones, but Corruption, Raise Volcano, and various Death spells are a pain too. Fortunately, these spells all have a counter, but unfortunately, they aren't very accessible counters - Rare or VR spells. The other option is diplomacy, of course, but that's not always a solution either - maybe your spellbooks are too different, maybe cozying up to one of them makes the other mad at you, etc.

Part of the issue is that the spells themselves are fine - it's a number of players problem. If Raise Volcano didn't remove a tiles resources, it'd be too weak - but in games with a lot of opponents, it also means that you'll only be able to squeeze out a couple of Mirthril, Adamantium, or Orichalc troops before it's gone forever.

So I've proposed a couple of solutions, because right now it can be a little frustrating for non-Life and/or Sorcery wizards.

1. Unscouting. I see two options here:

a) Gradual deterioration: If the AI discovers a city but then goes X turns (varying by difficulty) without "seeing" it, the city is removed from the AI's list of scouted cities and they won't target it or its workable tiles with curses until they "discover" it again.

b) Magic: An instant spell, possibly Arcane, that removes the targeted city from the scouted listed of all AI players.

In either case, it should have little to no impact on wizards the player is actively at war with, but will prevent or limit a wizard three continents away from throwing random curses on you just to be a dick.

2. Personality limits: An optional setting that limits the amount of AI wizards that roll the Narcissist personality (e.g. at most 1 Narcissist for every 6 AI).

3. Targeting limits: Make the AI less likely to target the same player twice in a row with curses (ironically, this could sometimes result in *more* curses coming the player's way, but on balance should result in less).

4. Nuclear option: An optional game setting that prevents the AI from casting curses on the player's cities at all. Personally not interested in this one at all (they're part of the game!), but someone will want it.

I'd love to hear any ideas or feedback.

[prokolyo]

Part of the issue is that the spells themselves are fine - it's a number of players problem. If Raise Volcano didn't remove a tiles resources, it'd be too weak - but in games with a lot of opponents, it also means that you'll only be able to squeeze out a couple of Mirthril, Adamantium, or Orichalc troops before it's gone forever.

This is so very true. The reality is that these minerals just don't exist long enough to make a significant difference to the gameplay - they might as well not exist at all. I really like playing with those and it's super frustrating to realize that you can't really use them at least mid-term.
I don't have any suggestions on how to deal with the issue though... Maybe having only a transmute type of curse that can only change the mineral, not completely nuke it, I don't know. Or maybe only some type of chaos fantastic creature can cast it when the mineral is within sight or something.

[Seravy]

Option 4 is already implemented in version 1.0.3.
3 makes no sense and is a bad strategy.
2 reduces game diversity which is bad
1 Makes no sense. Prevent hostile AI from scouting your mithril or Orihalcon city in the first place. Considering the average continent sizes and distances, this shouldn't be as hard as in the DOS version. If you conquered it within their territory, it's common sense they'll destroy the resources, that's a basic military tactic.

Minerals are powerful, so it requires high effort/skill to use them effectively - either by controlling diplomacy, enemy troop movement, or occasionally, but not reliably, luck with opponents.

[prokolyo]

Minerals are powerful, so it requires high effort/skill to use them effectively - either by controlling diplomacy, enemy troop movement, or occasionally, but not reliably, luck with opponents.

This is very true too.

[Suppanut]

I have some similar experience to you but different situation. I have experience of how ai end up weaken and bonzi themselves through pile-up effects of global curse they could not deal with.

In my nature-chaos warlord/Runemaster playthrough, I have 7 fellow chaos wizards in game and they dominate the war by piling up chaos surge (which partly due to I keep distribute them around in some form or another). And later they start destroy themselves by spam chaos rift and call the void follow by piling up of 3 Armageddons 2 Doomsday 1 meteor storm (in CoM1, just one of these each enough to cause GG to other 4 wizards). This cause global economic crisis with mass unrest and army desertion everywhere including those ai casters of those curse themselves. But the thing that really break everyone's back due to 2 "harmless" (due to give no diplomatic penalty) "Call the Wild" global enchantments which cause monster rampages to storm and destroy all those cities which have mass desertion and turn them into ruin.

I survive and win that game without need of any war out of shear luck (it is my first game in COM2, so I know almost nothing about how current game work at that time) due to....
1) I able to flow with the wave of chaos surge, so I survive combat well
2) I mostly stay out of conflict, no pointless war here, all I do is to read situation and take advantage of it, Clairvoyance spell help me greatly in reading situation. When some wizard retire/overthrown, I able to quickly send my troop to take those natural cities before others could in most case.
3) One who cast "Call the Wild" first is me, I did not expect it to end up being giant killer at that time as I only cast it to save my own ass as I could not deal with monster rampage with meager situation I am in (not get used to new big waterworld map), Later another nature wizard fellow also casting it after get this spell from me, but this is before global curse piling up.
4) I'm not the one who first cast Armaggedon, and at first I don't have it in my book too. but later I get it and found situation out of control so I cast it anyway. Due to size of map, now Armaggedon nolonger have terrible effect when cast unhinderly anymore but still great source of power, I also have change terrain spell, so I could fix terrain problem in my territory. Later I cast "Roots of Genesis" too and give this spell to another nature wizard that survive the game for cheap price so that we would heal the world and get profit from it together, so I would not have problem with power economy.
5) Most of my arm forces are flying warship which has 0 upkeep anyway. So I don't have problem with mass desertion when great calamity came.
6) When Doomsday start to piling up, I have enough power to to convert some of my mana into gold to stay afloat, later I also treasure hunting by send my flying warships into ruins of once great cities across 2 worlds to take gold left from that ruin, "Call the Wild" and "Clairvoyance" make this process easier.
7) No one care to disjunct my global enchantments due to I have alliance and functional relation with everyone that survive and runemaster retort really make ai put my global enchantment on low priority to disjunct. No one also care to cast city curse on my city too due to similar reason (I get rid those who would curse me by force if no other option). AI also could not analyzed which spell that really end up destroy them, none of AI wizards care to disjunct my and another nature wizard's "Call the Wild" although it is reason why they lost most of the cities to monster rampage and left only a few older core city on some core islands which left some continent complete deserted (when combined with corruption from doomsday and call the void).
8) I have army of priests and shamen to clean corruption and process is quite tedious due to current version (1.0) corruption cleansing rate of Gaia's Blessing is low or unnoticable (and none for volcano, so I need to use change terrain spell)
8) By end game, I keep control conflict and unrest around the world by control number of doomsday that active and disjuct everyone armageddon, and meteor storm. I able to recolonized the world. Restore the world and bring post-apocalyptic world under my control without need of great war. I end with win button after all enemy forces combine less than totally me.

But, yes, this is shear luck, I would not able to win this way if not for books and retort I pick. AI really bring apolcalyptic world to their own demise. I hope AI would do something less dumb in future version.