While my intended solution to the problem these create is pretty much the "don't let that many wizards survive until the endgame", multiple copies of these spells might still use some fine-tuning on their unrest effect.

Currently you get +2 unrest for each Doomsday beyond the first and +1 for each extra Armageddon.

Maybe changing that to add +1 for any duplicate of either spell, and cap the total at 3 would be better?
With that, the worst case scenario is 10 additional unrest (5+2+3) instead of what's currently pretty much unlimited.
However that also makes the strategy of trading these spells away to escalate the effects ineffective.

Either way the effect is already moddable in the unrest script file and this should came up rarely, but we might want to adjust the default, let me know what you think.

D2R Patch 2.5 is now live on the ptr

I am liking it, first, because it didn't introduce any (major) changes to the core game play. Looks like I don't need to create new ladder toons, and concentrate on building the Variants.



I guess you guys would know I am not for patches for the most part. There are no (significant) skill changes, nor more overpowered runewords that the game balance on. The game as is, is already "ruined" by favouring the Ladder Chasers, those who thinks a character should be able to solo 8 any challenges in the game, and do it safe and fast.



The 1 big changes of this patch is the introduction of the Terror Zone. I am glad this is an Opt-In.

Quote:Terror Zones
The journey to level 99 is a celebrated experience for players and quite the milestone if achieved—a rite of passage, even. We want to offer an alternative to repeatedly farming Baal, Diablo, or Nihlathak. We also want the journey to level 99 to be accessible to a larger population of players, full of variety, and most importantly, challenging—this is where Terror Zones come in. As we get into details, please note that players can choose to opt-out of Terror Zones if desired.

When playing a Terror Zone-enabled game, every hour, the armies of the Burning Hells will focus their demonic might on specific zones, terrorizing them. The monsters in these zones will be at least two levels higher than your current level or their original level, up to a maximum per difficulty. The experience received and the loot dropped by killing a terrorized monster will be based on this new level. In addition, terrorized monsters will also grant additional experience points.

Here are the level details for each monster type per difficulty:

Normal

Base: +2 levels up to level 45
Champion: +4 levels up to level 47
Unique: +5 levels up to level 48
Nightmare

Nightmare

Base: +2 levels up to level 71
Champion: +4 levels up to level 73
Unique: +5 levels up to level 74
Hell

Base: +2 levels up to level 96
Champion: +4 levels up to level 98
Unique: +5 levels up to level 99
The base player level used for the above calculations are taken from the creator of the game. If the host leaves the game, a new player will be selected for the base.

Upon entering a Terror Zone-enabled game, you'll be informed of the current terrorized areas through a message sent to you via the Chat Box. When the time for new terrorized zones draws near, you will be informed of the impending changes via the Chat Box.

In addition, you will be informed that you’re entering a terrorized area by several indicators:

Unique iconography next to a terrorized monster's name
On-screen text and messaging
Special audio cue
In-game text on the auto-map

v 1.04.05

Comments
- Spells seem much more balanced than before. Love them. Love the feel of the game - it's made a lot of progress!
- Various quality of life enhancements are so, so nice. X cursor over unit already affected by spell, the grid - awesome. The warning about all cities already have that spell, the new auto modes, so much more - you really impressed me!
- Where do I find the current manual? The one I have seems to be missing things, for example "Insulation" or "Monument"

Bugs
- When game suggests your next unit move (unit flashing), but you select different units which are on open tower and try to make them move on other plane, you get error saying they can't.
- After casting wall of fire in battle, my melee units wander out of it to intercept advancing melee unit
- On windows, two monitors. Playing on left monitor. Right monitor every 10 seconds or so, constantly forever pops up white boxes on top and bottom of it while game is open.
- After setting # of enemies to random and playing, it will be set to a number the next time you are on that screen. In other words if you set all the settings to Random when making a new game, then lose that game, and make a new one, everything will still be on random, except # of enemies.
- Casting target widget thing on the right side shows even when casting a global enchantment, or summon. The thing that says "Select a target"

Suggestions/thoughts
- Exit Game on main menu. Weird to need to alt-f4 in full screen mode, or exit full screen mode
- Click anywhere to close Wizards screen
- Flee is basically removed, as it virtually always means "lose all units immediately." Probably because of this line of thought/coding, the AI doesn't use it anymore, which was a cool mechanic. I suggest a revisit to this flee mechanic, because you might as well rename it to "commit suicide" as it is now. In real non-game history, fleeing virtually never means all units die. Anyway, just think it's too aggressive still.
- Still find it extremely stupid that some bears wandering in the woods will magically know when I have added more troops to my defenses, and then completely change their rampage direction, to target another city entirely.
- I can't remember what the logic was for adding a spell to the building tech tree, but it seems a strange avoidance of proper balance to me. Maybe easier said than done, but Tree of Knowledge is quite a weird one-off and hopefully will some day be removed.
- Auto on my units, would be nice to have them do similar movements to how computer AI does - move and shoot for example. Currently feels like a feature that punishes me for using it
- Auto on my units, would be nice to have some kind of "just stand there" mode. Often I want enemy fliers to expend their shots and come die on me in melee. Currently auto is extremely slow as I have to watch all my units wander aimlessly. So I still just mash "done" over and over. Maybe can be called "stand firm" or "hold ground" or something.
- Roads have been nerfed so hard that they seem to serve no purpose at all other than gold. Units just ignore them when pathing, for the most part, except in combat, where they work. Probably they should do something overland. And whatever that is, it could be different between realms maybe
- After research, there used to be a page flipping animation for the spell book. I realize 90% of the time I just click to skip it, but I still miss it.
- The enemy colors are very hard to keep track of. Just played a game against pink, purple and dark purple. I accidentally invaded the wrong wizard's city, and this wasn't the first time this has happened. Not sure what the fix might be but the colors are too similar because of the gradients built into the flags, etc.
- When you choose to be red, the minimap is quite confusing as volcanoes look like your cities. Not entirely sure if it's just red that has this kind of issue, but definitely at least red.
- I was confused at first by clicking "Next Turn" and seeing it turn to "Unknown" while I waited. Probably if there are no other known wizards it can not show that, or ... don't know. I actually thought it was a bug at first, like an unknown string.
- On potions, some kind of quick description of what the hero attribute does would be nice. I have to search it each time.
- Confirmation on potion use would be nice if practical to do
- Have gotten a message about city of atlantis showing up, but no indication where it might be, or if it's supposed to be something or do something(?)
- Maybe can disable more of the inappropriate spells in battle spell book. For example "Wall of Darkness" when I am attacking someone else
- In combat info list, Turn should be last or first, not in between the skill, mana and range (since those 3 are linked)
- In combat "possession" can be chosen, though all units rolled over are X (in my test case was a hero and some sprites). I believe this is because it is only searching for "normal" and is including hero, but it actually can't cast on hero.

All in all I am so honored to experience the massive gains you've given to my favorite game. It is significantly better than it was even a year or so ago. Great job!

Since introduction of CoM for windows and 13 opponent wizards, I notice something about how each retorts actually become more or less useful as map get bigger and/or more opponents than standard original CoM 4 opponents in DOS version was. Some retorts scale rather well with bigger maps and more opponents (such as Guardian/Warlord/Tactician/Omniscient/Cult Leader which effect scaling up the more cities or units wizards have so they scale up much in larger map, or Astrologer that bigger map mean more opportunity to gain benefit from this retort, or Channeler which basically allow wizard to ignore one aspect of scale up problem you would have in bigger map completely, or Charismatic which benefit scale up well with number of opponents) While some retorts have effect that not scale up or down with map size or number of opponent (such as Alchemy/Sage Master/Archmage that gives the same scale of return depend on amount of resources to put on so bigger map means greater resource lead to great result with little to none deminishing return, or Famous that effect scale of fame that although technically fame could be raised faster on bigger map but output of it still not quite scale with map size or number opponent, or Runemaster/Myrran/Specialist/Artificier that benefit actually fixed in aspect that not related to map size or resource input).

But of some retorts are scale up poorly in larger map size and more opponent as map scale become bigger, especially for human player due to ai have resource use advantage that human does not have such as Spellweaver and Conjurer. Both of this retort have benefit scale up with casting skill that equation intentionally made it scale more linearly with constant investment time rather than shear resource input until very late game. This technically both of these retort suppose to have power growth somewhat as empire get bigger and has more resources on large map but target and need for using both retort scaling up quadratic along map size as wizards has more target to enchants or more cities in need of summons creatures to protect them but casting skill prevent players from actually use it on all the needed, so return of the benefit of both retort actually not scaling up for human players for their intended playstyles on smaller scale game. Among these two, Conjurer gives worse benefit in larger map due to there is no option to use conjurers to return resource for invest into expand its scope in the way that Spellweaver could until very late game for some specific combo.

On this issue, I think problem originate from casting skill growth (forced linear in relative to time by huge deminish investment as skill get higher), empire's growth (quadratic), and empire's needed (also quadratic) not grow at the same rate. This become more apparent in larger map and more opponents. This lead to overland-casted heavy playstyle such as summon-based and unit enchantment-based not scale well on larger map. Human player would never able to go fully summons army across empire in larger map as players would need more field armies and need to deal with several different fronts with a lot of logistic problem. Doom stack become less and less important as map get bigger too as players would need several good stacks to deal with a lot of different fronts that more than what player need to handle on smaller game.

This is the thread for the Master of Magic (for Windows) Speedrun Contest. You have to link our speedrun videos in this thread.

The rules are as follows:
#1: You must record your entire run start to finish and post a link to that video here in this thread. Starting with the title screen (I want to see the version number in the corner)
#2: It must be played using the current version of Master of Magic for Windows. (1.04.05, 2022-08-02)
#3: NO MODS - The item editor is allowed though.
#4: You must have your Realms Beyond username in the description of the video. So I can verify everyone is posting videos of their own work.
#5: Contest ends on August 28 at 11:59 PM (Alaskan time zone, hey it's my money, so I'll make the rules, and I'm setting it in my own time zone). Video announcing winners may take a day or so to put together after that.

I am giving out prizes for the following three categories. The rules and what I'm willing to shell out is as follows.

Category #1: Any%
Beat the game as quickly as possible.

As far as the clock is concerned the first frame is the one where you are asked to name your city. And the last frame is when the score screen appears. That is your time.

1st place prize: $20 in steam games.
2nd place prize: $10 in steam games.
3rd place prize: $5 in steam games.

Category #2: Maximum opponents Any% 
You must have 13 opponents.
Beat the game as quickly as possible.

As far as the clock is concerned the first frame is the one where you are asked to name your city. And the last frame is when the score screen appears. That is your time.

1st place prize: $20 in steam games.
2nd place prize: $10 in steam games.
3rd place prize: $5 in steam games.

Category #3: The Long Haul

You must have difficulty set to Advanced.
You must have 13 opponents.
You must have game size to Maximal.
You must set continents to large.
You must check the option 'plane of earth'.
No other options may be checked.
Beat the game in the fewest turns possible.
The clock only comes into play in the unlikely event of a tie.

As far as the clock is concerned the first frame is the one where you are asked to name your city. And the last frame is when the score screen appears. That is your time.

Grand prize: $100 in steam games.
2nd place prize: $25 in steam games.
3rd place prize: $10 in steam games.
4th place prize: $5 in steam games.
5th place prize: $5 in steam games.


Video I made explaining the contest in detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjjEwP280C0

Happened to tune into your stream. Congratulations! And good luck!

Hello. I will be away for 2.5 days between 27-29 August (probably functionally 28-30 August for non-Australians). If I could get a sub to cover my turns that would be great. I can leave general instructions, or more specific ones if anything intense is happening.

I was having few approach to Master of Magic before, but i always drop this masterpiece, because the controls of units on the main map was confusing to me, and the map was not readable.

Here are my impressions with suggestions:

1. Its is not clear which tile are under influence of the city.

a thin, semi transparent border line may do the trick. A highlight like in Implodes MoM looks very nice, however will be confused with FoW.

2.
 fog of war could have shattered edges like an unexplored darkness now.
It looks nice in Implodes version.

3.
auto explore button

I am not interested in giving each turn my scouts order to move in any direction.
I care about 2x things: explore dark areas, or scout around nearest town for enemies - which way each unit go I dont care as long as it follow this general direction (nearest black tile OR nearest FoW close to my town).

suggestion:
there is big grey NONE button, that could become Explore (for unit that dont have special skills as Settle).

4.
I cannot use arrows to scroll the map, when I have selected unit, nor when im in F1 mode (surveyor).

5.
when i press F1, would be handy which available for town tile have what max population. It could be a number similar like Geomancer F12.

6.
Hill, forest and grassland tiles are melding in the eyes together.

i think its because the grassland tiles have too many dark green pixels.
have a look here:
https://fessicsfavorites.files.wordpress...evo_06.jpg
you see at a glance where is forest, because there is clear contrast between light grassland and dark forest.

hills should have more brown color (like the coast line) at the top.

7.
control scheme is awkward and you need to get used to it. i tried to inverted mouse buttons options but it doesnt help. navigation in city and other menus become troublesome and unintuitive.

basically it is standard that:
you select unit with left mouse button - it feels natural i click the main mouse button to start interaction with some object.

then you issue order with right mouse button, but the unit keep being selected, till you not click something else with LMB or press ESC. this allow me to see the red movement arrow and be sure of my unit destination.

the red movement arrow should appear as soon as unit get out of movement points, and dont disappear until you have click something that is not an unit.
even other unit movement red arrow should be simultaneously display, so i can plan my whole army movement.

Figured everyone had a home except the lurkerati, so here we go.  Like some of the player threads, we can change the name here if we come up with something more waterfowl-like.

Figured I would start a thread here. We can change the thread name once we figure out something better.

My PYDT token: eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.NzY1NjExOTgwMjQ3MzA1MTc.LBT0O7W44RVJNjwt2HXS0BFpysmEvIdCEG3Sr2hFzz0