Master of Magic has a queue! (and less stupid bowmen)

[kyrub]

I updated Insecticide patch, for 1.40o.
It's alpha, there are some problems. I think they are just flaws, but I had little time testing, sorry.

See opening post here
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=3663
Play and enjoy!

[Hadriex]

What did you do to bowmen? I am most curious.

[Tiltowait]

Whoa! AWESOME!!! Going to check it out now! Thanks kyrub!!

[Tiltowait]

Bowmen receive huge penalties to hit at long ranges. The only time they fire without penalty is when adjacent or 2 squares away. 3-5 squares it's -1 to hit and over 6 it's -2 to hit. The computer will waste all its arrows before the enemy gets into effective range.

Incidentally this is one of the reasons that Horsebows are so good, they have the speed to close with the enemy, and fire their arrows from 2 squares away at full effectiveness. Then they run away if the enemy gets too close. After they shoot all their arrows, their stats are identical to cavalry, albeit without first strike. So, they're still good in melee and each figure has 3 hit points (huge at low and mid levels).

[Tiltowait]

The new HELP.LBX file clobbered Psyringe's replacement help file. What changed in the help file?

The "Game" menu still says v1.4n.

I think the new world size is OK. I'd prefer a size between Small and Medium, though.

How was the world generation tinkered with, exactly? The new world size seems to have a LOT of neutral cities. There were 10 on Arcanus and 13 on Myrror. I tried again and got 11/11.

The new world size should be called 'intermediate' or something else. Renaming the taxonomy will just confuse people like me.

I hit alt-RVL and alt-PWR to see the world and power up. The computer wizards all started casting huge spells! Meteor Storm, Planar Seal, Herb Mastery, and one started casting the Spell of Mastery. Does this usually happen? I thought alt-PWR just gave YOU 10,000 mana and gold.

My capital was orcs and I was using the queue. It works! Amazing, the impossible dream realized at last. Queuing in Master of Magic. A great accomplishment. I was rush-building the city improvements just to go through the queue when the next one was Nightmares. I looked on the production screen and Foresters Guild was selected. I clicked OK to save the game and start experimenting with this phenomenon, only to be greeted with the red text box 'Fell Gorge no longer has the ability to produce Nightmares'. I started producing more city structures using the queue, and after a few turns my Library had been replaced with a unit I had never seen before, Draconian Engineers. After they moved to the front of the queue, I clicked OK and got the same "no longer has the ability" message. This seems to happen pretty reliably with a random military unit replacing the city improvement when you rush-build through a queue. Could this be the result of Meteor Storm destroying my previously built buildings? No, it happened in my second game as well, with no Meteor Storm and no rush-building.

The only bad thing about the queue is that you can't queue up city improvements you don't qualify for yet. For example, the standard new city sequence of Granary->Marketplace->Farmer's Market can't be done.

When I defeated an enemy wizard, I suddenly got several thousand mana from somewhere. What happened?

When the computer cast a spell, the theme song kept going even after I dismissed the message. I think this is related to the Roland MIDI sound that I use and wasn't introduced by the 1.4o patch.

I would have played longer but S'ssra cast the Spell of Mastery and my game was over. I had two Sky Drakes and was heading to attack the other cities to see if any of them had bowmen.

My second game I finally attacked a neutral city with halfling slingers. They moved to within 6 spaces before attacking. Fire Giants in a ruin just shot their two stones as normal from their starting positions and then started moving into melee range. Centaurs did not fire at all, just charged straight at me into melee.

Can we disable the computer from casting Disenchant Area as a means of dispelling every spell in an entire combat? I understand it's part of trying to win, but re-casting unit spells on a whole stack is just tedious. When this happens I just want to quit the game right then and there.

Since I could see all the computer moves, I noticed anyone who could produce Engineers did so, to the exclusion of all else. Just a lot of Engineers building roads behind each other, in a line stretching back to the capital.

[Tiltowait]

Also, Marcus the Ranger somehow took Torin's portrait. Right-clicking on Marcus showed he was a Gnoll Spearmen (with 9xp which is correct).





Marcus also didn't show up on the army screen, and he wasn't in my capital where I left him. When I tried to click on his portrait to make him active and find out where he was, the game stopped responding.

[FrancoK]

I updated Insecticide patch, for 1.40o.
It's alpha, there are some problems. I think they are just flaws, but I had little time testing, sorry.

See opening post here
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=3663
Play and enjoy!

Unbelivable! I find a moment to check the forum and Kyrub is back with a new (alpha) patch.

Hello every body! I'd like to say I'm back, but it really depends on my cute baby.

Kyrub, few quick question about archers:
- did you stall the firing until the enemy is 1,2 tiles away or if it is 6 tiles or closer?
- It is only for archers or all firing physical weapon units that do not have Long Range?

P.S. BTW do you remember the address in the game of the % chance to have Adamantium at the world construction?

[Tiltowait]

I also noticed that on the F2 map screen, the wizards are all still there after being defeated. Don't their flags disappear after they're eliminated from the game?

After being attacked, my High Men Bowmen had Holy Weapon cast on them, even though I had never done that (I was playing 11 book white). This enchantment did not show up on the overland map.

I was mistaken before, the bowmen close to within 5 squares before attacking, not 6. I was hampered by a lack of enemy bowmen to attack. I tried changing spearmen to bowmen with the real-time tweaker but they still acted like spearmen in combat, i.e. never fired their bows. At length, I finally found a neutral High Men city with some bowmen defending it. They advanced to 5 squares away and opened fire no matter where I moved on the battle board. The Swordsmen stayed put at their starting positions. After running out of arrows, the Bowmen stayed put and did not attack. Also, they had magic weapons despite garrisoning a 5-pop city that only contained a Barracks and a Smithy.

Attacking a neutral Halfling city, the Swordsmen stormed out of the city and charged. As did 5 of the 7 Slingers. Two moved to range 5 and started shooting, the rest charged into melee. The battle board graphic also had enchanted roads while this was on Arcanus.