Retorts and books you can find in a given game

[zuzzu]

I've playtested a couple of games to see realistically how many books/retorts one can find in the course of a game.
It seems that by default I managed to find only 1-2 books, and 1 retort, per game (within the first 10-11 years).

I think it would be interesting to find a way to provide new lairs / nodes / other challenges to get more books and retorts later in the game.

Otherwise, at higher difficulties and especially with a large number of opponents, you cannot rush the AI to clear lairs/nodes fast enough, and it's a pity IMHO.

Thoughts?

[Seravy]

Not getting too many books and retorts too consistently is intentional design to make character creation choices more relevant.
It also breaks the game if you can always simply pick the early game books, spells and retorts and always find late game spells later. That makes choosing those pointless.

[jhsidi]

The inconsistency can be a bit jarring. I've had a game where I found around 8 picks then the next game I found 0. I don't recall what you said about the way the extra picks are assigned to lairs / nodes, but I find it almost totally random as to which location may have a pick. It might be nice to be able to somehow predict whether there may (not definitely, just may) be a pick somewhere so that I can fight to get to it the fastest.

Another side note about picks--

Nature / Chaos / Sorcery appear FAR more often than Life / Death just due to the frequency of nodes having picks, and those picks being the same magic type as the node. I feel like this should be corrected... somehow. Might be best if the pick was just random, but that might encourage save scumming too much. (In general I think it'd be better if save scumming didn't work for high value treasure, but I understand that might not work for the chosen data structure.)

[zuzzu]

Not getting too many books and retorts too consistently is intentional design to make character creation choices more relevant.
It also breaks the game if you can always simply pick the early game books, spells and retorts and always find late game spells later. That makes choosing those pointless.

I'd agree, but I don't see how getting 4-5 picks per game shouldn't be the norm. Getting instead just 1-2 per game is just too low.

[Seravy]

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

[Cruel100]

Not getting too many books and retorts too consistently is intentional design to make character creation choices more relevant.
It also breaks the game if you can always simply pick the early game books, spells and retorts and always find late game spells later. That makes choosing those pointless.

I'd agree, but I don't see how getting 4-5 picks per game shouldn't be the norm. Getting instead just 1-2 per game is just too low.

I also have to agree. I've been playing at the maximum map size and in the various games I've tested I've gained a maximum of 2. Maybe if I were more dependent on the map size it would be an improvement.

[Beorn]

I'd be sorry to see a switch to more spell book drops.

At least in my games (large numbers of wizards, large maps), it seems like it make the first half of the game much easier to take at least two, preferably three colors of spell books plus a couple retorts.  So there ought to be a cost to that -- a paucity of high powered spells later.  So you can play that way for early game advantage, but if you move too slowly, you are gambling that some rival with a lot of one spell color might end up with vastly better spells later, so there is pressure to hurry and take such wizards out.

But if instead that three color setup simply sets you up to sweep up a whole bunch more spellbooks....

I have no problem with a small percentage chance that in a given game more spell books than usual show up as drops, but frequently enough to count on?  I'd prefer not.

[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.

[Suppanut]

I have question about book and retort from lair.

Why it seem that ai wizards much more likely to get books and retort as reward more than player? Even in game which I almost monopoly all lairs, I still have seen that ai wizards get more books and retort than I could.

And do books and retort reward lock behind time to only allow late game? In game which I could hunt lair very quickly. All my early game lair give me abundant of mana which mean it suppose to reward me something else but either I already have them or they lock by time.

[Seravy]

No, books and retorts don't have a time lock and the AI doesn't get any sort of additional chance to find any. You simply had bad luck.