Because both have their advantage and disadvantage so it's not obvious which is better.

So I was trying hero strategies with various realms, and I was tired of getting low level heroes like Zaldronon, Rakir, Brax etc all the damn time. I picked Famous because I thought the higher starting Fame would help get better heroes early on. The first time around, it seemed promising as it turned up an early Shuri. However, it's been pretty disappointing afterwards, with the second run pulling Serena, the third pulling Brax, and Rakir showing up another time. Is the retort underpowered, or is it just my bad luck?

While we have paid attention to single realms all being equally powerful, I think we should also look at what dual realms offer and which, if any, might need improvements by possibly adjusting some spells to be more combo friendly. This doesn't aim to be a complete list of good spell combinations, more like a generic evaluation of the most relevant syneriges.

Life+Chaos
+Chaos covers fills in best for most of Life's weaknesses : combat direct damage, counter flight, undispellable buff in Chaos Channels, being unable to directly hurt enemies, being bad at summoning.


+Life and Chaos buffs stack very well and especially in late game both realms have powerful global enchantments to buff all of your normal units.
+Both realms have a very heavy focus on global enchantments in the late game and have a spammable economy spell, so this works well for Runemaster and Spellweaver.
+Can destroy enemy economy globally while being protected from anyone else attempting the same, leading to easiest economy victories
+Cold Immunity, True Sight and Lightning Resistance items allow safe use of heroes vs every realm except Nature in the game.
-Both realms are hard to use in the early game, and potentially vulnerable to a lot of things.
-No access to sea travel magic, so has to rely on boats

Overall, I think lots of good synergy here and if Chaos early game gets better then I see no major disadvantages.

Life+Nature
+Both realms buff city economy which stacks in a multiplicative way (more population from nature, higher outputs per population from life)
+Can stack a ridiculous amount of defense boosting effects on any unit
+Nature covers for Life's weaknesses second best - Web, good summoning, mediocre but playable direct damage and save or die effects, overland curses, best combat summoning realm which is a major benefit for life wizards who otherwise don't have that ability until very rare
+Transmute offers mass produced adamantium, acting like an undispellable unit buff that stacks with Life buffs
+Earth Gate allows quickly reinforcing newly conquered cities which allows the unstoppable hero or buffed stacks to advance way faster.
+Call Lighting+healing/defense buffs can wipe out entire enemy armies with a single medium tier unit
+Second best set of item powers for artificers, all the life buffs, immunity to Crack's Call via Merging, and Regeneration
-Many buffs don't stack because they are either normal or summoned unit exclusive
-Some (but definitely not all) healing effects might be redundant

I think this is also good enough.

Life+Sorcery
+Best hero support via artifact powers and buffs
+Best buff stacking potential overall in the game (Life+Spell Lock!)
+Only two realms that have spells that benefit peaceful strategies directly.
+Time Stop is insane with the economic power of Life magic producing near infinite gold
+Overland movement boosting spells help unstoppable Life stacks or units to conquer faster
+Best late game lair/treasure hunting combination (Fast, invisible, immortal hero stacks)
+Buff own economy while dispel/counter enemy economy spells for economy victory
-Both realms lack good direct damage
-Both realms lack quality early game summoning spells, making early game hard, possibly even harder than Life+Chaos, but Aura of Majesty can turn that around

This is mostly about stacking buffs and using heroes, and is excellent at it.

Life+Death
+Spells to kill both normal and fantastic units instantly
+Dark Ritual affects Heavenly Light and stacks with Cult Leader for probably the strongest power output combo in the game
+Extremely good at dealing with unrest and as a consequence, best gold/production economy for snowballing rapid city development
+Both realms are good at avoiding losing units in battle (death units regenerate or you gain undead, Life heals or revives your normal units)
+Death offers Wraith Form and Shadow for Life's good heroes
+Stack Prayer and Black Prayer and Misfortune for some crazy combat advantage in battles involving larger armies in the early/midgame
-Both realms share having problems with flying enemies
-Undead aren't affected by Life healing magic
-Anti synergy in Death being unable to buff Life's normal units further while Life offers very little for Death's otherwise amazing summons

Decent, especially in its ability to mass produce large armies (or lots of economic buildings) early on while paying very little on maintenance and losing almost no units in combat. Overall might have the best early game potential.
However, other than that, not much is going on here and I see little reason to play these realms together if not for that reason.

Chaos+Nature
+Both realms offer solid, easy to use strong points : summoning and direct damage.
+Offers a powerful early (Nature) and late (Chaos) game.
+Raise Volcano is a combo with Nature's terrain modifying spells (but not a particularly good combo, it's more fun than effective)
+Survival Instinct with Doom Mastery
+Gargoyles with Land Linking are a serious force in the early game due to their low cost and being almost impossible to damage
+Nature is very good at stalling out combat, which can be used to throw lots of powerful damage spells from Chaos at the enemy
+Earth To Mud with Flame Blade bowmen is extremely good early on.
-Too much spell redundancy, both in combat spells and overland summoning spells.
-Even more spell redundancy : building destruction spells, Fire Storm/Blizzard.

Overall, it's kinda average but being the most newbie friendly and easiest to play that's probably not a bad thing.

Chaos+Sorcery
+Several unique, powerful spell combinations : Mind Storm+Disintegrate, Magic Vortex+Magic Immunity
+Inner Power buffs most Sorcery creatures
+Extremely good at defending or conquering cities without using much, if any, units. (dispel city buffs, rain fire, summon an air elemental, spam flame strike, etc)
+Invisibility+direct damage spells = win
+Most powerful late game spells in the game in both realms
+Sorcery magic is best to cover for the weaknesses of Chaos creatures or support them. (Invisible Chaos Spawn, Reinforce Magic and Focus Magic for Efreets, etc)
+AEther Binding offers high casting skill for Chaos spells
+Can dispel buffs that would protect from direct damage
-Extremely mana hungry
-Early game is slow

My favorite combination, definitely good enough.

Chaos+Death
+Can destroy both buildings and production/population to effectively destroy enemy cities without having to conquer them
+You almost always have some spells that can be used to destroy enemy units in combat
-Too much combat spells and overland summoning cause spell redundancy
-Chaos's resistance based spells and creature are strictly inferior to Death's options at least until Disintegrate

Nothing really stands out here. Might be good in games with fewer opponents where curses and economy reducing globals can easily win you the game but overall I think this isn't a good combination. Maybe if some of the Chaos commons offered more synergy to death...

Nature+Sorcery
+Focus Magic on Cockatrices
+Resist Magic covers for low resistance of Nature summons
+Nature covers for Sorcery's weak summoning and early game and lack of city economy options
+Earth Lore+Floating Island to scout the Myrran plane without opening it up (I think this even allows you to get Myrran mercenaries?)
+Good options for heroes/artifacts.
+Versatility in combat summoning (Nature offers durable, Sorcery offers high damage units)
+Regenerating in general is very powerful in the hands of a realm that is good at stalling for time (Flight/Invisibility/etc)

Definitely a solid combination here.

[b]Nature+Death[/b]
+Can destroy both buildings and production/population to effectively destroy enemy cities without having to conquer them
+Can heal undead
+Survival Instinct buffs undead
+Both realms can summon early regenerating units
+Strong early game through versatile, powerful summons, decent combat spells, and cheap hordes of undead
-Shares the weakness of low resistance
-Too reliant on save-or-die effects

Overall good but could be better?

[b]Sorcery+Death[/b]
+Best at destroying both summons and normal units in and outside combat
+Stack lots of resistance reducing effects to improve the above
+Lots of access to invincibility to abuse the combat spell potential
+Strong Death creatures fix weak Sorcery early game
+Resist Magic covers for Death creatures having low resistance
+Lots of magic power from cities in the late game
+Extreme control during late game as Death globals make it harder to cast and research spells and then you counter them if necessary

Many synergies, no obvious disadvantage, I think this is a great combination.

So I think most are fine, but Death could be better with Chaos/Nature/Life. On the other hand, Death being a selfish realm that's offering the least for others does make sense.

https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/foru...hp?fid=342

Edit : Finished moving all CoM II related threads.
If I missed any that still needs to be moved, let me know!

Milestone III is done, waiting for response from Slitherine to start beta testing.

However that doesn't mean we have to sit idle doing nothing, instead, I can make progress on the stuff I was planning to add during the beta.

List updated, removed the already implemented or postponed features.

3. AI should learn to cast Nature's Cures.
This one is very questionable - the AI casts first and moves afterwards, so they'll need to have a full turn pass before they can even consider casting the spell. In addition, if the AI does a lot of battles, it might end up using most of their overland skill on this instead of summoning more monsters etc.

8. AI combat, when the AI is chasing after a unit with a large army, maybe the AI should spread their units out to corner the target more effectively? Not sure if necessary or how to do it though.

9. When AI decides on accepting/rejecting a hero, consider the AI's realms?
For example, Life or death wizards reject melee heroes without thrown or flight because they can't enable them to hit flying units without finding the correct artifact by chance.

11. Main Menu background should be improved.
Original game has the "Master of Magic" text animated, I have no idea how to do that for Caster of Magic.
No need for scrolling credits here either because I'm the only developer.

12. Spellbook page turning animation
This looks cool but it's difficult to implement, probably quite time consuming, and doesn't add to gameplay.
What's worse, slower animation slows down gameplay.
So not sure we want this?
Very low priority.

13. Detailed message about fleeing units.
"While fleeing you lost 7 units" vs "While fleeing you lost 3 Slingers, 2 Swordsmen, Witch, Draconian, Bard."
I'm worried this might potentially result in too much text though because the broken building list can already get very long. How did all of it actually fit the window in the original I wonder.

14. The generated button textures could have creases added to it, as the original game had some on their buttons.
Very low priority obviously.

16. Intro
Obviously I can't make a new one so we'll have to use the old one if we want any. Or maybe Slitherine wants to make one for us?

17. Allow spell charges in random generated item? If yes, which spells?
This basically applies to lair treasure containing items like
"Sword of Fireball x2" or "Wand of Entangle".
We probably want to avoid the higher tier spells in this feature, if added.

18. Autoselection order of units during battle?
http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...?tid=10299

19. Possible addition of new item powers
Optional.
This can be milestone V but it's reasonably simple compared to new races or heroes so if we have good ideas, it can be done now.

21. Are we happy with the current Pandora's Box summoning budget and summon timing/chance?

23. Orc Horde might make more sense with 9 figures.
I originally wanted to do that but it wasn't possible in CoM I. If we increase figures, we need to tweak the other stats somehow.

24. Game option that makes the AI take their Diplomacy Phase before their turn instead of after for additional score.
This basically makes it so that the AI can attack you the same turn they declare war instead of the next turn.
Not sure why we would want this tho it was a player suggestion, it feels largely unnecessary. If you have no treaties the AI can attack you without a war declaration already. If you have treaties, they won't be attacking you directly after breaking the treaty most of the time, as they will need additional turns to declare war and it's very unlikely they'll roll "hostile" in the few turns in-between. So while it does have a little influence on gameplay, it's not relevant enough to be worth adding.

26. Create a manual

32. "City screen - work manager"

38. AI should issue stalling order to Phoenix in combat if there are enough normal units to fight. Probably should only use the Phoenix to engage when there are fewer normal units left than Phoenixes and using Raise Dead is not possible.

39. Cartographer screen layers (City names, Nodes, Lairs, etc.)

43. Test Chaos early game. It might be still too weak without Fire Storm? We might want to improve some of the common spells like Warp Wood or Disrupt?

44. Monthly report used an animated scroll image in the original game.
Like spell paging, this too is nice but not particularly necessary and absolutely the lowest priority.

45. How to handle Mud?
What movement types are unaffected? (Currently noncorporeal only. Original game also allowed pathfinding+noncorporeal)
What tile types are unaffected? (Large mountains! But what about small mountains, rivers, forests, etc?)

51. I want to add consumable hero boosting items into treasure as some of the rares possible things to find.
For example "Vial of Agility" would add the "Agility" ability to one hero of your choice permanently, or upgrade it to super if they already had it. Probably should be roughly half as many of these than spell picks.

Test Game 1 : Minimal map size, Expert difficulty

Elimination mechanic enabled fully :
   

Elimination mechanic enabled in diplomacy only, disabled in combat:
   

Elimination disabled :
   

...to be continued.

Ooooh just heard about another MOO like project called Alliance of the Sacred Suns (that seems to have been doing public betas for years under the name Imperia5x) when I saw it's kickstarter campaign. Looks like an interesting attempt at being different from regular Master of Orion like 4x space strategy games by focusing more on you the emperor.. feels kinda of like a 'Dune - Padishah Emperor simulator' managing those pesky greedy disobedient houses haha! Planetary management looks interesting, those separated regional environments and developments remind me of MOO3. A simple thing but I also love how the planets moons just swing past the camera while you're managing the world. Haven't seen any space battle footage so I dunno how that's managed. It's kickstarter period is over half way through but it's not even at half funded which is a bit worrying. It's been worked on for many years and seems so far along so hopefully the project would survive a KS failure.

For anyone who's ever wished there was a opensource rebuild of Civilization 2, it turns out there is one! A talented member of the Civ community named Axx has worked on and off over the years on a Civ2 clone build and has recently been answering questions and posting links and pictures from his project here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/m...t-15983617

Before anyone says it yes there's FreeCiv and C-Evo but they're not 1:1 Civ2 clones (that attempt to replicate everything Civ2 does). They're their own Civ games that have a bit of Civ2 feel to them but are written completely differently and contain bits from multiple Civ games as well as using their own unique features & ideas.

Civ2's original source files were apparently lost in the downfall of Microprose, so it would be interesting to see what the fan community could do with an opensource Civ2 rebuild.

Screenshots from his project:

blah blah blah

pw is qq

Sullla was playing a game of MOO today in his Twitch channel. 

Medium / Impossible / 5, with the Psilons, but with two variant rules: 

(a) research must be equally split for the six fields at all times; and 
(b) always pick the lowest tier tech (first of the list).


The "Inflexible Psilons" variant turned out to be a very difficult one, and combined with a corner start on the map and some tough neighborhood, made for a very interesting game! 

Too bad I couldn't see it live, but I certainly will on the next session (probably next Wednesday). 

Hope this can be a little spark to reignite the forum along with the holidays. 

Cheers!