An ancient game was "morra" and it have a lot of variants, let's start with the simplest version of it.
Two players, one choose Odd (like 1,3,5,...), the other choose Even (like 2,4,6,...) they both chose at the same time to show their own hand showing zero to five fingers.
If the sum of the finger is odd, then the Odd player wins, otherwise the Even player wins.
The game is quite simple, it is know all over the world and is fair.
The player have one "hand" with 6 different units (from 0 to 5 fingers), no unit is better than another.
The game is balanced (every player has a 50% chance to win)
Now let's see a more complex version of morra, also called Rock, Paper and Scissors.
Every player can chose to play Paper (five fingers), Scissor (2 fingers) or Rock (no finger).
Paper wins against Rock, Rock wins against Scissors, Scissors wins against Paper.
So every player has 3 units (Rock, Paper and Scissors) and each chose the unit to use when they play.
Is Scissors balanced with Paper? No, Scissors always wins.
Is Paper balanced with Rock? No, Paper always wins.
Is Rock balanced with Scissors? No, Rock always wins.
Is the game balanced? Yes!
Every player have 50% chance to win.
Master of magic is way more complex, but let's take a small sample of it.
Remove everything in the game and leave 3 units at Elite level:
High Men Paladin
Dark Elf Warlock
High Elf Longbowman
Now imagine you can create a combat where you can chose one of the unit and fight against an opponent that do the same.
Let's see how the combat will develop:
High Men Paladin attacks Dark Elf Warlock
Paladin will get no damage from Warlock, reach W. in 3 moves and kills the unit, getting a small damage.
Dark Elf Warlock attacks High Elf Longbowman
Warlock is immune to missiles from Longbowman and kills the unit in 1 or 2 moves, getting no damage at the end of the combat.
High Men Paladin attacks High Elf Longbowman
Longbowman hit from distance Paladin and kills the unit in 2 or 3 moves, getting some damage.
As you can see the Warlock against the Longbowman is a clear victory, while the other one are victories anyway, but with a small damage sustained by the winning unit.
Now we can see a similarity with Rock, Scissors and Paper?
Every unit has an big advantage against another and a great disadvantage versus the other.
But the game is balanced, even if the units are not.
Of course MoM is more complex, but the bottom line is: no standard unit is better than all others. And every unit is strong against a particular category of units and weak against another category.
The fact a single unit can kill 8 other units or is immune to a particular attack shouldn't bother us, as far as the bottom like is valid.
Bug present in Insecticide 1.40m, probably in 140n as well, never happened in 1.31
Impact: Game do not crash, occurrence is very rare .
Description: After the AI retreats from a combat (it started attacking my units from a city) my units appears in the city, the AI garrison is wiped out, but the city still belongs to AI.
Replicate: Savegame before and after the combat included.
What happened: My best guess.
When I was "attacked" by an engineer, I decided not to run (to avoid losing units) and not to kill the engineer (to avoid worsen too much my relationship with the mage) so during the combat I did not attack, hoping AI should flee soon.
The AI decided not to run (!) and casted confusion on my units, succeeding for both.
When my units resulted all fighting for AI in the same turn (in 20 or so turns), the AI get confused () and decided to retreat (IIRC with 1.31 the result should be "I lose the combat").
Retreating my units somehow moved with the engineer wiping the city garrison in the process.
(N.B. In the second savegame my units are just outside the city because I pressed the arrow key by mistake before saving; originally the units are in the nearby city)
Since I'm guessing what happened, I'm not sure if the problem is with the new confusion management of Insecticide patch or the same could happen in vanilla version, so I decided to post here.
As kindly requested I'm sharing with the community my personal mod: FQM.
Unlike other mods, who needs to be rebuilt when a new patch is released, FQM can be applied to vanilla (1.31) and to all Insecticide Patch (up to 1.40n, but probably the future patch as well: FQM shouldn't interfere with fixed bugs, but I'll check it anyway )
Thanks to all people who gave me advice, suggestion and precious info, too many to list, but if you made a tool, a website, a patch or a mod, I'm speaking to you.
What's new:
1.01
- Changed Magic Bug (Stag Beetle) to Tornado Bug.
- Rised to 15 from 13 the maximum number of books you can obtain.
- Rised to 15 from 6 the maximum number of retorts you can obtain.
- Changed Dwarf race to allow Bank, Merchants guild and Mechanicians guild
- Changed Golem to make it immune to various attacks.
1.00
- Changed Stag Beetle to Magic Bug.
- Changed Dragon Turtle to increase damage resistance.
- Changed Wolf Riders to Wolf Totems to increase Nature affinity.
- Changed Pegasai name to Pegasi.
- Changed Troll, Lizardman, Klackon and Gnoll to allow Alchemist Guild
Also changed, but not released, some hero names and some magic items.
The logic behind the changes.
The goal is to make quick and small changes to help weaker races: Lizardman, Klackon and Gnoll.
Their top unit barely stands against the middle units of the other races; their advantage is their cost is lower so they can spread around.
The change increase the power, but also the cost of the top unit only, slowing the player in the start of the game, for this unit only, but giving a fair fight in the middle of the game.
The dragons have a very thick skin, the turtles also have a a very thick shell, the Dragon Turtle should be more protected than any dragon or turtle, so I'm giving it weapon immunity.
Gnoll are a nature bond race, but unlike elves they do not rely on powerful magician, instead they can have a totem in the form of a wolf pack to fight against their enemies.
Later I changed the Magic bug (a magic immune subdued bug, too similar to Paladin) to Tornado bug (a unique subdued bug able to control the air around it, allowing it to Wind walk and rendering it Missiles immune).
Also to give all the races the chance to get magic weapons with Mithril and Adamantium, since Alchemist skill is bugged, I've allowed all the races to build Alchemist guild.
Hope you can enjoy this mod, comments (and critics) are welcome.
Pretty interesting that they decided to go above the developers. A couple of points some here might find interesting in terms of future changes.
Morhaime Wrote:Regarding the real-money auction house, our primary goal for including this in the game was to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items. Black market trading sites can put accounts at risk and create many customer service challenges. We felt that the players themselves also deserved the opportunity to benefit from the extra loot they found, as opposed to having all of the benefit go to the black market/illegal trading organizations. We know the auction house isnât perfect, but with your help and feedback, weâll be able to continue making it a better experience for those who choose to use it. On the flipside, we are also committed to ensuring you have a great experience with Diablo III without feeling like the auction house is mandatory, which was never our intention. Thank you for all the feedback about that.
Morhaime Wrote:Weâre also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the âitem hunt.â Weâre not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that weâre actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.
You have arrived at the Basium spoiler thread for FFH2 PBEM XIX. If any of you are my fine opponents thinking to take a peek before the game is over, know verily that divine retribution in the form of a large angel with an oversized iron-shod mace will find you and crush you! 2:
All others are most welcome to the sanctity of the Mercurian plane.
) and decided to retreat (IIRC with 1.31 the result should be "I lose the combat").
2:
