Retorts and books you can find in a given game

[massone]

If you disagree, you can edit your modding.ini file, that's what it exists for.

You are right, of course. But we should also strive to bring a balanced default modding.ini to the game. Of course I can change for my own games; but I also think that for most players, getting more than just 1-2 books/retorts per game makes for better games overall.

I don't agree on the default. 1-2 per game should be the standard. I think getting any more than that consistently reduces the strategic trade-off during wizard setup, as Beorn said, and disadvantages single realm plays. If anything, after seeing how many books Sapher was able to get in his recent Lunatic videos, I'd prefer a drastic reduction in book/retort/VR spell rewards in proportion to how many you already received. Possibly even a hard cap to stop players from capturing books as a viable strategy--capturing books should never be a central part of a strategy, it should always be a matter of good luck and a fun bonus for doing well. We should maintain a consistent and exclusive advantage given to specialist wizards in exchange for having fewer trading partners. If a player chooses a build that doesn't have access to Very Rare spells, they should be penalized heavily in the end game for it, not easily make up for it by simply capturing books to gain access.

[zuzzu]

If you disagree, you can edit your modding.ini file, that's what it exists for.

You are right, of course. But we should also strive to bring a balanced default modding.ini to the game. Of course I can change for my own games; but I also think that for most players, getting more than just 1-2 books/retorts per game makes for better games overall.

I don't agree on the default. 1-2 per game should be the standard. I think getting any more than that consistently reduces the strategic trade-off during wizard setup, as Beorn said, and disadvantages single realm plays. If anything, after seeing how many books Sapher was able to get in his recent Lunatic videos, I'd prefer a drastic reduction in book/retort/VR spell rewards in proportion to how many you already received. Possibly even a hard cap to stop players from capturing books as a viable strategy--capturing books should never be a central part of a strategy, it should always be a matter of good luck and a fun bonus for doing well. We should maintain a consistent and exclusive advantage given to specialist wizards in exchange for having fewer trading partners. If a player chooses a build that doesn't have access to Very Rare spells, they should be penalized heavily in the end game for it, not easily make up for it by simply capturing books to gain access.

And I disagree with you. 3-5 total picks (books + retorts) in my view should be the standard, not 1-2. 

Let me tell you why I think that: it gives you a good reward for pursuing a strategy where you aggressively clear nodes and lairs, and being the reward random still doesn't guarantee you that you will get exactly what you needed to perfect/maximize your initial picks. So adds depth to the game, IMHO.

[massone]

If you disagree, you can edit your modding.ini file, that's what it exists for.

You are right, of course. But we should also strive to bring a balanced default modding.ini to the game. Of course I can change for my own games; but I also think that for most players, getting more than just 1-2 books/retorts per game makes for better games overall.

I don't agree on the default. 1-2 per game should be the standard. I think getting any more than that consistently reduces the strategic trade-off during wizard setup, as Beorn said, and disadvantages single realm plays. If anything, after seeing how many books Sapher was able to get in his recent Lunatic videos, I'd prefer a drastic reduction in book/retort/VR spell rewards in proportion to how many you already received. Possibly even a hard cap to stop players from capturing books as a viable strategy--capturing books should never be a central part of a strategy, it should always be a matter of good luck and a fun bonus for doing well. We should maintain a consistent and exclusive advantage given to specialist wizards in exchange for having fewer trading partners. If a player chooses a build that doesn't have access to Very Rare spells, they should be penalized heavily in the end game for it, not easily make up for it by simply capturing books to gain access.

And I disagree with you. 3-5 total picks (books + retorts) in my view should be the standard, not 1-2. 

Let me tell you why I think that: it gives you a good reward for pursuing a strategy where you aggressively clear nodes and lairs, and being the reward random still doesn't guarantee you that you will get exactly what you needed to perfect/maximize your initial picks. So adds depth to the game, IMHO.

There are plenty of rewards besides books/retorts in lairs already, especially for low-book strats because they can get more spells from lairs that aren't in their spellbook.

More importantly, the fact that there's a clear disagreement from myself and Beorn on what the default should be means that it's not "most" players that feel the same way as you, so it should be left to modding if you want to change it from its current state.

[Cruel100]

I must agree with Zuzu. This change from the original, in my opinion, weakens a strategy and takes away the depth of the game. Being the master of magic means having more and more power. That's how I see it.

[jhsidi]

A game balanced to give 1-2 additional books / retorts will very often result in 0. Just due to the complete randomness of the distribution. That would be quite unfortunate. On the other hand, I agree that there is such a thing as too many rewards. Around 4 additional books / rewards begins to really tilt the game table, 6+ really makes it too easy. I also see that many powerful AIs will never even find one, which is kind of disappointing; more picks would make them more challenging. Other AIs, seemingly randomly, will find a lot.

Given the extremely high value of this particular type of treasure, compared to anything else you can find -- it might be better if it had a different distribution system than just "randomly anywhere in the world".

The distribution system could be changed so that picks have a chance of replacing whatever treasure is there, for each wizard, with a decreasing % chance of finding another one for each additional pick, and increasing % chance of finding one for each lair conquered with >X power. So if you conquered enough lairs, you'd definitely eventually find at least one.

[Anskiy]

Personally I would like banishing wizards to grant spellbooks. These days they tend to be extremely punishing to siege unless you counter them or can build an absurdly powerful stack.

[Suppanut]

Agree with Anskiy. Although I would want to modify his suggestion. Banish wizard should reward spell from wizard which has been banished but in case defeating wizard by assault his fortress, it should offer reward by either his/her spellbooks or his/her retorts instead (worth 2 books for each defeating wizard upon assault his/her fortress). If wizard is defeated while still casting spell of return, rewards should be 2 spells in his/her book or artifacts in his/her vault instead. If none of this available, just say "the wizard get inspired from analysis of (defeated wizard)'s works" and get a new additional spell entry for research instead.


Edited: Anskiy thinks I should not incentivized assault wizard tower for last. So I think if possible, there should be additional feature of victor stole spellbook from banished wizard. With this proposal, I think in case wizard get banished but not defeated yet. Victor stole 1 book (source of power) from banished wizard and banished wizard lose that book even if he or she cast spell of return. So when banished wizard coming back, he or she would coming back weaker. But to prevent this from turn into farming, each wizard could steal book from that banished wizard once. You get from his first time but next time you get book from him would be when you defeat him/her for good. Other wizard still could stole book from him but only on first time he or she is done that that to him/her as well.

[Anskiy]

I don't agree on the default. 1-2 per game should be the standard. I think getting any more than that consistently reduces the strategic trade-off during wizard setup, as Beorn said, and disadvantages single realm plays. If anything, after seeing how many books Sapher was able to get in his recent Lunatic videos, I'd prefer a drastic reduction in book/retort/VR spell rewards in proportion to how many you already received. Possibly even a hard cap to stop players from capturing books as a viable strategy--capturing books should never be a central part of a strategy, it should always be a matter of good luck and a fun bonus for doing well. We should maintain a consistent and exclusive advantage given to specialist wizards in exchange for having fewer trading partners. If a player chooses a build that doesn't have access to Very Rare spells, they should be penalized heavily in the end game for it, not easily make up for it by simply capturing books to gain access.

Has Sapher played MoM or CoM of late? From what I'm seeing, he only did the one Phantasmal playthrough when CoM 2 first released, and after that he's dedicated quite some time to King's Bounty instead.

[jhsidi]

I strongly agree that banishing / defeating wizards should be where additional books come from, but as I recall, that idea came up before and Seravy rejected it (I don't recall his reasoning on why).

Although I can see it might be unworkable; trying to figure out whether the mechanic goes with banishment or defeat is complex (IMO it should be on banish, defeat can be tricky for various reasons) and it conflicts with the new wizard retirement / disappearance mechanic. Imagine spending 20 turns constructing the perfect doomstack, only to see the guy vanish...

But as a game mechanic, it makes a huge amount of intuitive sense. Kill your rival, steal his power. As-is, the game has made taking a wizard's tower harder than the worst lair, with pathetically small rewards. It doesn't feel good; getting a book would feel amazing. So if there's any possibility of this happening I'm all for it.

[zitro1987]

I strongly agree that banishing / defeating wizards should be where additional books come from, but as I recall, that idea came up before and Seravy rejected it (I don't recall his reasoning on why).

Although I can see it might be unworkable; trying to figure out whether the mechanic goes with banishment or defeat is complex (IMO it should be on banish, defeat can be tricky for various reasons) and it conflicts with the new wizard retirement / disappearance mechanic. Imagine spending 20 turns constructing the perfect doomstack, only to see the guy vanish...

But as a game mechanic, it makes a huge amount of intuitive sense. Kill your rival, steal his power. As-is, the game has made taking a wizard's tower harder than the worst lair, with pathetically small rewards. It doesn't feel good; getting a book would feel amazing. So if there's any possibility of this happening I'm all for it.

I only agree if this particular reward is only for around turn 150 or later, when conquest is more resource intensive and less rewarding (early in game, attacking capital can result in outright defeat and towns becoming neutral for easy conquest)