Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Nelphine]

And you're right that archmage doesn't make that big a difference late game - but spellweaver does.

[Seravy]

Starting with 27 casting skill instead of 6 is HUGE. Being end game with 300 instead of 200 is HUGE.

Archmage does not work like that really and the effect is actually bigger late game. It's compounding.

I've also been thinking about balancing magic a bit from a different standpoint.
I think the single most important issue is the scaling of casting skill.
Basically I see the problem as follows:
1) it is increasing very quickly at the beginning. Raising casting skill up yo say 50-60 is rather easy.
2) it has most impact in the beginning. At 50-60 you can already cast every combat spell and summon quite a few buggers.
3) Now on higher difficulties this allows AI to do a lot of summon spamming way too early. I.e. they can be very hard opponents nearly from the start and then when you catch up they flatten up.

So my thinking is that a tweak in the casting skill formula might help making the game a bit more linear. For example if the formula is changed so the base you need to fill is not your current skill but a constant is added to it, say 20 then initial increase will be a lot slower.
For example if you have skill 12 you would not spend 12SP, but rather 12+base_constant(20) then for each further point the same.
SP(n+1)=SP(n)+n+base_const(20?);

base value of 20 is just a suggestion. For late game it would not really matter. The whole point is to diminish the effect of very early sharp skill increase that allows AI and Player to use really nasty stuff without actually paying properly for it. The increase of skill from 20 to 60 is what matters most really and that's way too easy to do IMO.
I'm not exactly sure what the AI difficulty bonuses are but I've found it rather more interesting when they do have casting skill cap.

If you agree that it makes sense this should be a simple change.

While I agree early skill is more important, I don't agree it's too easy to get. Power is very hard to have in the early game - that 60 needed to go from 30 to 31 skill is a large investment especially as it needs to be done for every single point. We are talking about ~1000 total power for 30->40. That's a lot more than what is needed to go from Fighter's Guild units to Armorer's Guild units for example.

What might be the source of it instead :
-Max power settings + finding an easy node boosts early power too much - a player can go from 12 to 50 power in a single jump. (max power is not a balanced setting to be honest, more like a "fun" one)
-A hero with AEther/Ritual Master+Heroism can double or triple early power available for skill (on the task list already, have a hard time deciding what to do.)
-A lucky Sorcery Conjunction can quadruple SP (unreliable but if it does happen it gets you up to 60 skill in no time. Random events have a massive influence in general, this isn't the only one.)
-Starting to conquer enemy cities that have wizard's guilds and other big power buildings in them ramps up power massively, as at this time the human player usually can't afford building them yet. (not really a problem, as it merely allows the player to catch up to the AI who already reaped the benefits of those buildings)
-Overall, expansion in that stage of the game is exponential, so power base is growing like that too. 2^x grows faster than x^2 so the growth in power income is larger than the growth in costs - but only while unclaimed territory and unbuilt cities exist. Once cities get their power buildings completed, exponential growth in power stops and the x^2 cost starts to be significant again.

[Nelphine]

Also I like the idea of adding a base amount to your casting skill for purposes of determining how long it takes to increase casting skill. Smoothing that curve out makes sense.

[Drax]

Following was written a few days back but I did not have access to post to the forum for some reason...


My point was that increasing your skill form 20 to 40 is a huge deal since you can cast all the combat goodies. Increasing it from 40-60 still big deal, but a lot less beneficial from previous step. Above 60 not that critical.
So while the casting skill function is linear(albeit steep) to spent mana the benefits from casting skill are very steep at low values.

So the price to get from 1 to 20 skill is 400SP -not noticeable since you start at least mid way and cost is small.
the price to get from 21 to 40 is 1200SP - huge benefit
the price to get from 41 to 60 is 2000SP - bigger price smaller benefit
the price to get from 61 to 80 is 2800SP - yet bigger price yet smaller benefit

So basically with 20 added to the base adds 800SP cost for every 20 skill raised. This will flatten the benefit curve slightly.

-Max power settings + finding an easy node boosts early power too much

-well yes the AI can conquer locations far easier than a Player can, because of "no tactical combat". Especially with spamming of fantastic units very early on. Since you already said that making the AI fight fair is not feasible, there isn't much to do about that. I've had opponent sorcery wizard spam Nagas and conquer a powerful Air Elemental node right next to my tower quite early game. As a human player you can't do that kind of stuff.
Preventing them from too much early spamming is good thing for such case.

As the human player that is not much likely as a easy node usually gives little benefit only like +12-16 power base and is a lot harder to conquer by human player.  And it is not likely you will get many of those around.

-A hero with AEther/Ritual Master+Heroism can double or triple early power available for skill (on the task list already, have a hard time deciding what to do.)

My opinion is that AEther master is way overpowered as I have said several times before. Heroism is not even that important. You can get a Hero up to Champion level rather quickly and if you get such a hero at turn 5, which has happened to me you can sacrifice a lot of units to get them experience quickly and reap the rewards. It's well worth it. I don't think Heroism is overpowered. I've played a bunch of games with Halflings and training of units is not that hard. Plus you can't cast heroism on fantastic units as in original MoM, which is a significant nerf of the spell.

-A lucky Sorcery Conjunction can quadruple SP (unreliable but if it does happen it gets you up to 60 skill in no time. Random events have a massive influence in general, this isn't the only one.)

I do think the sorcery event is broken. Though it doesn't happen often so the overall effect is not necessarily big.

-Starting to conquer enemy cities that have wizard's guilds and other big power buildings in them ramps up power massively, as at this time the human player usually can't afford building them yet. (not really a problem, as it merely allows the player to catch up to the AI who already reaped the benefits of those buildings)

That's very unlikely to be possible early game.

[Seravy]

the price to get from 21 to 40 is 1200SP - huge benefit
the price to get from 41 to 60 is 2000SP - bigger price smaller benefit
the price to get from 61 to 80 is 2800SP - yet bigger price yet smaller benefit

While I agree with these, I'd say the typical income is as following :

21 to 40 - income of 20 power (starting power, maybe a few points from a shrine or ore), requires 60 turns. - very hard to increase, especially as power is needed for mana
41 to 60 - income of 80 power (some nodes and a wizard's guild or two), requires 25 turns - much easier to increase
61 to 80 - income of 120 power (more wizard's guilds and nodes), requires 23 turns - about the same but at this time you'll be spending much more on mana and power so it's actually slowing down a lot.

There is a spike around 40 skill as that's when power starts to ramp up, skill is still easy to raise, and mana spending is low.
The problem with your suggestion is that it makes the 21-40 which is already the hardest to overcome, even harder.

As the human player that is not much likely as a easy node usually gives little benefit only like +12-16 power base and is a lot harder to conquer by human player.

That's what I was saying, on Max power setting that node will be 30+ not 12. And even 12-16 doubles your starting power income, it's a big deal.

So, in short, I agree with the suggestion except I think it's only true for, say, turn 50-100. Before turn 50 the opposite is true, skill is way too hard to raise. (which is an issue as some starting commons require 20-25 skill)
Thus a flat addition would not work well. Something more detailed might but there are space limitations and we want to keep it simple and easy to understand for players.

[namad]

If anything I suggest the exact opposite of nelphine, most of the casting retorts are too weak when compared to just having more books.
Yeah 33% more drakes might sound awesome, unless, ya know, you have no drakes. A lot of the build's I've seen people talking about beating extreme/impossible ai into the ground with focus more on early game retorts anyways.

That said the major change to astrologer and the other retort that just happened might end up shaking up the spell casting retorts and making them less boring anyways. We'll have to see. I wasn't a fan of astrologer before.

[Seravy]

If anything I suggest the exact opposite of nelphine, most of the casting retorts are too weak when compared to just having more books.
Yeah 33% more drakes might sound awesome, unless, ya know, you have no drakes. A lot of the build's I've seen people talking about beating extreme/impossible ai into the ground with focus more on early game retorts anyways.

That said the major change to astrologer and the other retort that just happened might end up shaking up the spell casting retorts and making them less boring anyways. We'll have to see. I wasn't a fan of astrologer before.

Agreed, I don't understand why everyone is saying many books are weak. It's the spells that win the game - knowing Call Lightning and Sky Drake is worth more than a 50% bonus to skill or something else. So far the problematic retorts have all been providing a bonus that's more significant early than late (or very significant at both).

Either everyone is abusing the "treasure spell rank up" effect and gets way more very rares than intended, or is ultra-lucky and always gets those that are needed to win...but I feel it's neither and everyone wins the game before very rare spells come into play - as all I see is reports about balance issues with the early game. I wonder how things will change if we get rid of all overpowered early game strategies.

[Nelphine]

My problem is I've never seen the long games you describe. Regardless of difficulty I've never seen a game where there was even a hint of doubt as to whether I would win or not as late as 1420. Most games I can predict by 1415.

And by that point, while very rares are in play, they certainly aren't the norm. Getting 1 extra sky drake that early increases the number of very rares actually cast by most wizards by 20-50%. 1 extra very rare cast is huge.

I do not abuse up ranking spells, or rather not actively. I just take lairs when I can.

[Seravy]

My problem is I've never seen the long games you describe. Regardless of difficulty I've never seen a game where there was even a hint of doubt as to whether I would win or not as late as 1420. Most games I can predict by 1415.

Predicting a game in 1415-1420 is fine...but at that time very rare spells should already be a major part of the game on extreme and impossible. And predicting is not the same as winning, the actual end of the game can be another 10-15 years away.

[Nelphine]

Right, but by 1420, either I'm dead (or dying with few cities) or I have multiple stacks that can take 3 or 4 enemy cities each without needing reinforcements and my enemies gave nothing that can threaten my core cities.

I've never seen major very rare impact earlier than 1417 or so aside from the game with death knights in one capital - and even then, that did nothing to threaten me on my entire home plane.