Probability of heroes or artifacts sell should be higher and lairs difficulty

[teelaurila]

I believe the absolute optimal strategy is to focus on conquering cities with cheap, reproducible units (like muxe's Klackons) and/or invulnerable ones (e.g. regenerating units).
... That requires a focus on early momentum, which is usually not something you can pull off with a pick like artificer.

An early hero with a couple of defensive items seems a rather straightforward way to make that invulnerable unit, and with artificer takes ~500-1000mp to cast, comparable to a full stack of early summons. And unlike a stack, the items can jump between a few heroes to expand the strategic reach. Granted that hero strategies tend to be high risk, but losing your first doomstack will lose a high difficulty game whatever that stack was.

[muxecoid2]

I am consistently losing on Phantasm, but learning a lot from it. Now I feel that I will be able to win on Expert with relative ease. And yes, I like klackons, but they are horrible at making use of conquered cities.

I do not see a way to get proper invulnerable early hero with 1000MP spent on artifacts and buffs. You need 14 resistance (black sleep, confusion, night stalker, cockatrices) 12 armour with +10% to defend. Also true sight. And you better have some offensive capability too! This looks like 1600MP budget already.

If you pick spellweaver and specialist endurance+heroism+discipline+holy armour+holy weapon is only below 200 mana. On a unit like slingers or crusaders it is crazy giving power level of rare summon.

So I do not think heroes in CoM are as overpowered as they were in vanilla

[teelaurila]

I am not saying heroes are OP, but they don't need a boost either in terms of more powerful items.

Early treasure is a huge and needed boost in the early game at higher difficulties. Even just those 100gp. So I wouldn't switch to bigger and badder treasures.

What should likely increase is the probability of having at least two heroes, so the curve of chance of getting a hero offer might be tweaked to be higher with 0-1 heroes.

[Seravy]

Not sure if this was the thread where a guaranteed first hero system was requested but anyway, calculated the probability of getting a hero.

There is a 11% chance to get no heroes in the first 10 turns when heroes are allowed.
This drops to 4.5% after 15 turns, and 1.8% after 20 turns.

After a full 2 years, the chance of no heroes is merely 0.8%.

I don't think it's worth implementing a hero guarantee system for those numbers, especially considering you can also find heroes as prisoner.
Next update will have the probability in the INI file so the default 1/6 chance per turn can be easily changed to 1/5 or 1/4 if desired which would reduce this already low probability to almost nothing. The earliest turn is already adjustable so you can easily change the probability by moving it to start rolling 10 turns earlier even now.

[GMBarak]

Not sure if this was the thread where a guaranteed first hero system was requested but anyway, calculated the probability of getting a hero.

There is a 11% chance to get no heroes in the first 10 turns when heroes are allowed.
This drops to 4.5% after 15 turns, and 1.8% after 20 turns.

After a full 2 years, the chance of no heroes is merely 0.8%.

I don't think it's worth implementing a hero guarantee system for those numbers, especially considering you can also find heroes as prisoner.
Next update will have the probability in the INI file so the default 1/6 chance per turn can be easily changed to 1/5 or 1/4 if desired which would reduce this already low probability to almost nothing. The earliest turn is already adjustable so you can easily change the probability by moving it to start rolling 10 turns earlier even now.

Ok, I agree about the hero, it's not a big issue, what about the artifacts sell? I agree with the limit of the value of the artifact being offered which increase by year. but I think the chances of it are too low for this feature to have a value, as you told before, the chances for artifact sale are 2% and increase by 1% for each 25 points of fame you have until 200 fame. I am suspecting that there is a common chance for units for sell and artifacts for sale and this damages the artifacts for sale by itself chance. for this feature - artifacts for sale, I think the chances should be increased by at least a little bit, maybe 150% of it's current value?
something like: 3% and increase by 1% every 16 fame to a total of 15% at 192 fame?

Also, and this will require a little bit more work: maybe for Caster of Magic III, implement something like civics or a global enchantment: allow to enter "searching for artifact" mode where you allocate something like 30%-50% of your monthly income to double the chance of hero/artifact offered to be sold to you?

Thanks!

[Seravy]

Artifacts, units and heroes are all rolled separately.
Artifact chance and budget of the offered item will be adjustable in modding.ini in the next version, including the chance gained from fame.

The current values btw are as you say 2% plus 1% per 25 fame, double both if Famous, capped at 10%. Item budget is 12*turn count before turn 120 and 1000+random(random(3000)) at turn 120 and beyond.

You can already spend gold to increase the chance of artifacts - buy a Colosseum.

[GMBarak]

Ok, I accept that, you make the game, you make the rules, just saying that in current settings the sell artifact feature is not useful to anyone. when was the last time you you saw anyone buy a useful artifact in a gameplay you saw? for me it was only one time in about 25-30 games I played. did anyone else who is reading these lines ever bought a useful artifact? if so how often?

[Seravy]

Buying artifacts is primarily a flavor and "for fun" feature, not something that's meant to be a reliable source of gamebreaking artifacts. Basically the same role as random events. No one builds a strategy around "Meteor will hit my enemy town and I'll get a neutral dark elf city through marriage" either, but it's nice when it happens.
If you want artifacts in a reliable way, that's what Create Artifact and Enchant Item are for, and you can of course also find plenty in lairs and nodes.

Emphasis on "Gamebreaking" as low budget artifacts are fine if you buy them early, but a turn 50 Invisibility+Regeneration or similar tier artifact is basically automatic victory if you know what you're doing.

The base chance of 2% and 25 fame per 1% does seem a bit too low at first sight though, maybe it should be 1% per 20 fame instead. Percentages do add up quickly though once you progress into the midgame and start getting fame.

A non-linear formula might be better for this?
Like, chance=SQRT(9+Fame)-2?

That's 1% at zero fame, 2% at 7, 3% at 16 fame, 4% at 25, 5% at 40, etc.

...I feel like I'm overthinking it, since it's really is just a secondary feature. Leaving the linear formula with the numbers in modding.ini should be good enough,

[GMBarak]

I already said that I agree with the artifact value increase with years as you have built it rightfully and correctly which will assure that invisibility will not be available in artifacts until mid-late game. but I do think that the chance should slightly increase. you are correct that it's a secondary feature and might not be all that important. I just mentioned it as a number of things that I thought might be changed in the game.

[GMBarak]

A non-linear formula might be better for this?
Like, chance=SQRT(9+Fame)-2?

I think we should consult the members of this forum,
Dear members of COM forum, can you please share your opinion if this updated formula for chances for artifact being sold is better?

Fame previous odds: updated odds:
0       2%                 1%
25     3%                 3.83%
50     4%                 5.68%
75     5%                 7.16%
100   6%                 8.44%
125   7%                 9.57%
150   8%                 10.6%
175   9%                 11.56%
200   10%               12.45%