Caster of Magic II Game balance brainstorming.

[drake178]

On small and tiny maps often there are no neutral cities at all.

In the DOS versions, this is caused by a (imo misguided) minimum distance restriction from encounter zones. If the windows version creates the cities the same way, then exposing this restriction in MODDING.INI may be an easy solution to the "problem". However, do note that this restriction (it's 4 tiles in the DOS games btw) acts as a natural, yet somewhat random scaling factor. That is, the larger the map, the more neutral cities there will be on it (that won't fail at finding a valid location). So if there is to be a scaling of this kind, it needs to be implemented with actual numbers instead. For instance, in the original game, which attempts to create 15 neutral cities, reducing the minimum distance to 1 causes all 15 city generation attempts to succeed most of the time, whereas even a minimum distance 2 will result in zero to none.

[Seravy]

It's already available in modding.ini I believe, if not then in the next version.

The default setting is 100-600% of the plane size ratio.

(that roughly translates to 1-6 on a Fair, 4 AI player game on each plane)

If a location can't be found in 1000 random tries, the process is aborted. There doesn't seem to be a dependency on lair locations except the obvious, the city can't be on the exact same tile as a lair/node/tower.

[drake178]

It's already available in modding.ini I believe, if not then in the next version.

Oh, you're right, I missed it. I went back to re-check and found it this time:

; Amount of neutral cities in percentage of plane size
NeutralCitiesMin=100
NeutralCitiesMax=600

It does seem a little weird that there wouldn't be any if there is no encounter distance requirement though. 1000 is plenty of tries.

[Seravy]

It does seem a little weird that there wouldn't be any if there is no encounter distance requirement though. 1000 is plenty of tries.

It's due to map size.

If your plane is 20% of the normal size then 20*(100-600)/10000 = 0.2-1.2 neutral cities.
It probably rounds according to math so you have to roll above a result of 0.5 to get a neutral city and you can't ever roll high enough for two.

Also there is a minimal distance from other cities - including player fortresses.

In fact the distance from a fortress has to be at least 6 instead of the usual 4.
On a very small game map there might not be any such land tiles at all, especially because fortresses also have to be as far from each other as possible.
In theory, 4 fortresses can block an entire 24x24 map from having any neutral city at all if they are placed like the dots on a "4" dice side. I don't think a 4 player Tiny plane would be much larger than that size.

Also the option to generate less sea will make this worse due to smaller distances and more concentrated land.

[Seravy]

Actually there is only one road type so no, this isn't possible at the moment.

[jhsidi]

Possible bug, or I missed the discussion on it: undead units that can cast life drain / syphon life are not retaining the HP they gain from those spells after battle. So they add HP during battle, but then afterward it just disappears.

If that was intentional, I have to really, strongly disagree with it. Leeching life is completely thematic for Death and was not overpowered.

[Seravy]

I think that was fixed in the coming update, 1.1.1. In general healing undead didn't work properly even for spells that intended to do it.
I suspect even undead vampires weren't able to use bloodsucking to heal.

[namad]

<p>Does book 9 in a school really only add 2 additional spells beyond what book 8 offers? Or is that a typo? (If true doesn't this make the 9th book the worst book by far?)<br>Oh also does caster of magic 2 still have an overextension warning system? (or does the increased number of ai that exist end up rendering this concept moot?)<br></p>

[Seravy]

Yes, there is still an overextension warning system.

Book 9 has 1 more rare, 1 more very rare and 1 more guaranteed very rare pick, as well as the 5% casting and 8% research discount bonus.

It's definitely slightly worse than the 10th book, not sure about the 8th though as it has no cost benefits, only spells.

[Suppanut]

could wizard have more than 10 books of the same realm? and what is reward for that? is it possible to get all 44 spell in the realm in books if book of that realm above 10?