Spellweaver

[Nelphine]

First, only the human could abuse it, and the AI can't break through in one turn. It literally can't plan that way.

Second, yes, provide these cases where you would WANT to spend an entire pick on retreating better, rather than taking other picks that will help you win in the first place.

I'm not saying these situations don't exist.

I'm saying, I play to win. A retort based around me running away won't matter to my current playstyle. It would need to be 100% on turn 1 for me to even consider it because I don't understand when it would be a benefit.

But if I did choose it, the only way I can think that it would help me win, is by allowing me to kill superior forces, by repeatedly fighting and running away. But if they're superior, then I can't fight too long, which is why I'm concerned that it would only encourage the playstyle I described above.


Again, I'm not saying that's what you want, but I'm asking you to provide concrete examples of situations where this retort actually makes a difference, and helps me win, that don't include the type of situations I've described.

(Part of the problem is I don't remember the last time I clicked flee, unless I had already decided I literally didn't care about the unit, like when my settler got attacked after I had already reached the city cap.)

I literally don't understand why anyone would WANT to flee more often. How does it help?

[Bahgtru]

Invisible unit

If you can survive 7 turns you can survive 25. The game does not move randomly, there's a pattern.

[Nelphine]

What about a retort that changes the diplomacy rules?

Specifically, something like 'Beginner Training, 2 picks: with this retort, if you attack an enemy and do not win, or when an enemy attacks you, there is no change to hostility. Attacking an enemy and winning creates half the hostility it does now, including cities, so the AI does not declare war until you take away 2 cities from them. When fleeing, heroes never die. Cannot be chosen by the ai, cannot be chosen on any difficulty greater than fair'.

Idea being to give someone the ability to make the game easier for learning, but since they have to give up something (picks) for it, they would want to learn enough to play without it.


Make easy difficulty give humans 13 picks, give all easy default wizards this retort and remove 1 spellbook. Make all custom wizards on easy default to having this retort but it can be removed.

[zitro1987]

'Beginner Training' could also include more descriptive monster lair descriptions (including invisible units and/or a difficulty rating) as it could be difficult to figure out whether to attack as a newbie, at least on 'F1'. Not a bad idea, if a bit similar to charismatic.

Guardian (which I never pick now) - what if it grants an added minor bonus of decreasing the effect of city curses, or having a 25-50% chance of dispelling them when cast, or a small turn-by-turn percentage that curse fades away)

Lucky:
*Building destruction (city conquering, curses) generally avoid destroying the more valuable buildings such as amplifier towers
*You are less likely to be attacked by neutral units
*You are more likely to receive rewards of spellbooks and/or retorts
*Increased fleeing chance (pretend all your units have 1 more move)
*10% chance any attack or hostile spell will have 0 effect on a unit (different from armor)
*Some other bonus relating to luck or chance
*Something with random events

The dumb lair guardian retort that allows your brute force to conquer more otherwise impossible lairs:
*Neutral units and lair protectors become original MoM dumb (no fleeing out of danger, ranged units attacking after shots exhausted, etc)
*Automated combat against neutrals give you an X% boost in combat calculations (to help AI)

[robinh3123]

First, only the human could abuse it, and the AI can't break through in one turn. It literally can't plan that way.

Second, yes, provide these cases where you would WANT to spend an entire pick on retreating better, rather than taking other picks that will help you win in the first place.

I'm not saying these situations don't exist.

I'm saying, I play to win. A retort based around me running away won't matter to my current playstyle. It would need to be 100% on turn 1 for me to even consider it because I don't understand when it would be a benefit.

But if I did choose it, the only way I can think that it would help me win, is by allowing me to kill superior forces, by repeatedly fighting and running away. But if they're superior, then I can't fight too long, which is why I'm concerned that it would only encourage the playstyle I described above.


Again, I'm not saying that's what you want, but I'm asking you to provide concrete examples of situations where this retort actually makes a difference, and helps me win, that don't include the type of situations I've described.

(Part of the problem is I don't remember the last time I clicked flee, unless I had already decided I literally didn't care about the unit, like when my settler got attacked after I had already reached the city cap.)

I literally don't understand why anyone would WANT to flee more often. How does it help?

I would think for early use of heroes.  Giving high chance of survival in retreat.   Previously I have to arm heros a lot before throwing them to battles.

Or for example, I can prepare a lot fewer magic spirits to use confusion for conquering lair defended by 9 groups of chimera.

It could speed up in early stage as well as some tactics for late stage.   Yet it's hard to say if it worth a pick.   The numbers (how effective retreater is) do matter.

There are lots of hit and run cases, (for now it's hit and die: my inexpensive unit dies with some enemy's death, to ensure some progress.  I don't have concrete idea, and some may need to experiment before it becomes a strategy.  But I believe there should be some.

[Seravy]

Attacking is binary. Sure the amount of REL lost can be halved but the war and the hostility status cannot. They either turn on, or not.
I'm not a fan of retorts the AI cannot use, even less retorts that the human cannot use (above a certain difficulty). If we want easier difficulty to have different rules, we should do that without a retort but I rather not.

Lucky : Is made up from components we individually rejected, and is just an unreasonable amount of work in general to implement this many effects.

Dumb lairs : No. It wouldn't actually help the AI since they either can attack the lair and beat it already or cannot and still won't be despite the bonus. Besides, a retort that makes the AI clear out lairs faster would be extra unfun.

[Nelphine]

I would think for early use of heroes.  Giving high chance of survival in retreat.   Previously I have to arm heros a lot before throwing them to battles.

Or for example, I can prepare a lot fewer magic spirits to use confusion for conquering lair defended by 9 groups of chimera.

It could speed up in early stage as well as some tactics for late stage.   Yet it's hard to say if it worth a pick.   The numbers (how effective retreater is) do matter.

There are lots of hit and run cases, (for  now it's hit and die: my inexpensive unit dies with some enemy's death, to ensure some progress.  I don't have concrete idea, and some may need to experiment before it becomes a strategy.  But I believe there should be some.

To me, these all seem abusive. Why would we WANT the game to allow magic spirits plus a starting spell to allow you to conquer 9 chimera (arguably one of the strongest uncommon summons)?  Realistically, I would want to change it so that magic spirits plus confusion literally can't work. Period. (Except there are lots of other things to account for, so we can't actually say no that doesn't work. But I would not want to make it even easier.)

Heroes are already powerhouses that can single-handedly take on way too much (one hero vs a fortress with an AI with over 250 casting skill, and 7 gorgons that have multiple buffs each, like lionheart, resist magic, bless, elemental armor, and iron skin, plus multiple caster heroes; and that one hero literally takes the entire fortress out without taking damage.)  Although in this case, I agree that the problem with heroes is that at the beginning they are too fragile, and at the 'end', they are too powerful. Except the 'end' is just having 3 good items, so you COULD literally have that in 1404 if you got lucky.

And hit and run, when using EXTREMELY underpowered units (such as magic spirits to take on chimera) are exactly why i think it NEEDS to be hit and die. Making it hit and run would just mean you never need to bother with strong units.  If you don't need to bother with strong units, then that takes out a HUGE part of the investment and resources that the game assumes you have to spend.

[Nelphine]

Attacking is binary. Sure the amount of REL lost can be halved but the war and the hostility status cannot. They either turn on, or not.
I'm not a fan of retorts the AI cannot use, even less retorts that the human cannot use (above a certain difficulty). If we want easier difficulty to have different rules, we should do that without a retort but I rather not.

Lucky : Is made up from components we individually rejected, and is just an unreasonable amount of work in general to implement this many effects.

Dumb lairs : No. It wouldn't actually help the AI since they either can attack the lair and beat it already or cannot and still won't be despite the bonus. Besides, a retort that makes the AI clear out lairs faster would be extra unfun.

Right, so what I'm suggesting is that hostility shouldn't be turned on by failed attacks (period); and if the AI attacks you (obviously hostility is already turned on) there is no further change to relation - so if the AI conquers your city.. it doesn't declare war.  Then, when you attack, if you aren't successful, hostility isn't affected. And, if you ARE successful, hostility is turned on, but relation lost is half what it normally is, and anything that would normally trigger 'auto war', such as you conquering an AI city, instead only causes a relation penalty (which may mean you need to add a new war declaration when relation reaches hatred?)

I'm suggesting making it a retort, specifically because we a) don't have any great ideas for the current retort slot and b) we don't have enough buttons on the first page, to allow us to customize what exactly difficulty does.  Ideally, I'd actually rather have a whole new page, where you can identify and pick a lot of these things (exactly what triggers different diplomacy statuses, exactly how good fleeing is, exactly what percentage the AI requires in order to attack something, how the AI reacts to invisible/flying/much stronger units once in combat, basically many of the things we have discussed over the past few years, where we've had to make a choice based on what we think is best for the game, but which realistically are subjective things based on who is playing; even things like exact cheating bonuses.  I'd also suggest some of these options have minimum or maximum difficulties - so if you want to play on Lunatic, you cannot choose to auto flee; if you want to play on Easy, you couldn't set overland casting cost of the AI to 20% - and in those cases, the options or values would be greyed out or not a choice).  But I don't believe we can add a new page to the flow.  So since we can't add a new page to the flow, well, that's why I suggested a retort.  Realistically, I completely agree with you. That's not what a retort is for. *shrug*