Myself and dazedroyalty are going to be doing a duel AW PBEM (we actually just finished one and are going to do another), and we are currently in the market for a map maker - if someone is willing. We have two ideas for what we'd like to see, and if we can anyone willing to do one of these, that'd be awesome. Here they are-

Idea 1: Something like a miniature version of the PBEM7 map, except with it mirrored, and obviously on a much smaller scale (with just two players). The idea is a main (identical) continent on each side with the islands in between for a nice cross between naval warfare and land warfare.

Idea 2: A predominantly land map (possibly mirrored, TBD), but the stipulation would be that the two start very close to each other, each with backlines land to expand to - so balancing extremely early warfare with backlines REXing.

#2 would obviously be much less work (maybe 30 minutes max), so we fully recognize that #1 might be a bit of a pipe dream for just a simple duel PBEM, although if someone said they'd make something like that if we were willing to report it on RB, then we might be able to do the occasional report as incentive .

So here's what I'd like to ask - if you are able and willing to do either one of those, send me an email (realmsbeyondscooter at gmail dot com) or PM (include your email address in the PM please) letting me know if you would be willing to do one, the other, or both.

In the very early versions, the spell system was entirely different. You started out with no spells, but picking extra books let you pre-select a number of spells that'd be available to research down the road. I'd love to bring this feature back, and am wondering if anyone has an early version of MoM to dissect.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT

Wizard
3x Chaos (Fire Bolt and Eldritch Weapon)
3x Death (Weakness and Dark Rituals)
3x Nature (War Bears and Giant Strength)
Conjurer
Sage Master
Race: Any arcane race, there are 9 save files and you just need to pick out the correct one.

Settings
Hard difficulty
Medium land mass
4 opponents
Normal node strength

Objective
Reach a power base of 200 (excluding conjunctions and moons) as soon as possible, using any means necessary!

Variant rules
- Magic Spirit may not be used for exploration!
- You must capture at least 3 cities of pop 5+ from a wizard before attacking his fortress
- Banned: Coldsteel's 250 production bug.

Instructions (IMPORTANT)
Download the save here, pick out the race you like best, rename it to save1.gam and copy it into your MoM folder. Note that we're using kyrub's patch v1.40f for this tournament AND you must enable revolting raiders + rampaging monsters! Also remember to disable strategic combat, it may be enabled by default.

This one produced so much discussion on Dragonsword that it warrants its own thread.

City Walls are currently a very problematic building. In particular, it often serves to handicap the AI player. The benefits of being able to move to close range before emptying all your arrows on the enemy is quite massive. And the defense bonus is IMO unimpressive to begin with.

I propose the following, assuming it's technically feasible:
1) Ammo level is doubled at the start of combat for all defending units in a town with city walls.
2) The AI is tweaked to give higher preference to ranged units for town defense (might be problematic)
3) The defense bonus is upgraded so it doubles the unit's ranged defense
4) You're given a -3 penalty to hit when firing at units behind city walls, regardless of distance.
5) Both points 3 and 4 disappear entirely for units behind broken walls.
6) Making them a bit more costly to produce and maintain

a. Basic unit availability, cost, stats and abilities - availability mostly unchanged, cost structure changed considerably, big stat changes, many abilities added across the board

Cost structure will change to function in increments of 20%, and the abilities Thrown 1 and Fire Breath 2 will give a fixed cost increase of +10. So Barbarians might have unit costs of 100% + 10, meaning that all their normal units will cost an extra 10 hammers. Exceptions will be made where basic units don't benefit, such as ranged barbarian units.

Unit availability will change very little, although some basic units may be converted into racial units. Like, turning gnoll bowmen into something a lot more interesting.

This AI thread takes the whole part of

- choosing the right place to settle
- managing the buildings & unit training right
- speed building
- leaving the right units in cities for defense
- building roads

(plus the whole AI economy, if you like to speak about it - but it was largely repaired already)

Feel free to discuss it here.

Similar to other AI threads, but focused on combat.

The two big parts are quite obvious:
- AI unit movement strategy
- AI casting spells

I have done very little changes in this department, so I will be grateful for any suggestions and discussion.


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ISSUES
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Rebuild of ...
- the cautious approach of AI troops (ranged strength assessment + other considerations)
-

Major
- AI targetting reassessment (phantom warriors bait, closer units priority if AI cannot hit another target, ...)
- if AI defending with flyers faces a lost battle against ground units, it should 'wait' human player into oblivion [kyrub]
- AI conventional shooters should conserve some shots for close combat! [many voices of reason]
- AI heroes shoud use ranged attack more often
* AI casting too many defensive spells when faced with units with special abilities
- AI should use less mana, unless: defending a city, attacking ships. No mana when it has an overwhelming advantage.
- AI trying to kill-off units that are out of reach, instead of attacking the nearby ones

Minor
- AI seems to always use Fireball and Doom Bolt in the first turn, move to second turn [b0rsuk]
- AI should prefer to kill off distant unit instead of just wounding closer units (suggestion if dist > 4 => unused distance consideration) [b0rsuk]
- AI casts Earth to Mud against quick flyers [b0rsuk]
- Earth to Mud only if: AI has ranged advantage + HP has quick units
- AI should take note of node colour when casting spells
- AI wastes mans on Life Drain

Tiny
-

All foot units get 2 moves and 2 hearts, cavalry gets 4 moves and 5 hearts, catapults stay at 1 move and 10 hearts. Clerics are a new unit type which is available to high men, beastmen and halflings. They replace priests and halflings respectively.

Please post reports in the tournament reports and discussion subforum!

I apologize for being away for the better part of a month; real-life issues have severely limited my internet time. I did finish this game though, of course, and will post my report as soon as I get it cleaned up and uploaded. I hope everyone had fun with this one!

Go away, players. Come back when the game is over.