Spell Very Rare Treasure

[zitro1987]

Can you disable [advanced] spell rewards for AI and possibly leave spell reward system unchanged for human?

Change them to books/retorts or some other good reward for AI?

While I prefer not to make rewards different for the AI, I see no reason why we can't do this to both : if the "too early to find" condition triggers, the player gets a book/retort instead of their very rare spell.  We can't do this with rares though, they aren't worth that much and are too frequent - question is, are rares enough threat to the game to even need that?  Probably not.
The only problem with this one I see is, book treasure is, well, random. If you get a book in your realms, you got your unresearched very rare and some extras. But if it's a new or low book realm, you only get commons/uncommons (albeit, in this case you have access to up to 10 spells in trade which is a huge deal. Every realm has some really nice commons that matter even in the late game.). Retorts are probably even better than books if found so yeah, I don't think we need to worry about this resulting in worse treasure than the intended very rare. We might need to worry about it becoming far too good, though - but if someone takes out a 2.4k+ budget lair early that had the elusive "very rare spell" drop, maybe they deserve that bonus.

*I'd think that is a reasonable bonus to give 1 book or retort for human players as well, if triggering a very rare too early.
*1 retort or 1 book is hardly 'too good' for 2.4K treasure. Maybe even 2 books may be reasonable as a free very rare is an extremely impressive reward, especially early on.
*having the switch guaranteed early in game is not expected to happen often enough to cause a new problem. 
*Getting a book or retort is among my most exciting treasure finds for some reason, so I'm ok with it.

I probably wouldn't do it with rares. The treasure of well over 1000points would be hard to crack when early enough for this to be an overkill bonus. If you insist, the switch should be limited to just 1 book (instead of retorts), but I'd rather apply this feature to just very rares.

[Nelphine]

So, what's your time frame for this? As pointed out, I regularly get very rares earlier than 1408, and in my games, the AI and i typically clear 95% of lairs/towers/nodes on both planes by 1410. And the ones that aren't cleared have nothing to do with difficulty, it's purely whether I happen to find them or not. By 1410 I typically can clear 9 very rares of any realm from a lair/neutral. I'd expect any playstyle based around treasure to do so by 1412. (However, I also typically have all very rares in my book researched by 1412-1415)

For me, any later than 1407 would be punishing and make me significantly slow down my game play by actively avoiding treasure hunting. Which would mean AI would get the treasure not me. And even on expert I typically give up at least 1, often 2, of the 7 very rare/books to the ai. On lunatic, it's usually 2-4.

I'd much prefer switching to a book/retort rather than get a lower tier spell

[Seravy]

Your games are most definitely not normal. I don't think I have found a very rare before 1410 more than once in these past 3 years. I'm not playing on Lunatic though.
You're expectations also aren't normal - I usually start cracking harder lairs around 1415. Start, not finish. But again, I'm not playing Lunatic and usually my wizard choices reflect this.
Based on how the research system was designed, players are expected to research there first very rare around 1415-1417 on average settings.
However, this is treasure - it's ok if it comes a little bit early, just not extremely early. 

It doesn't have to be turn count though. There are other alternatives as well :
-Year 1412
-Player has at least 3 rares researched
-Player has at least 20000 accumulated RP

I agree that switching to a book/retort is the best option we have.

[Domon]

can spells non in your book be just added to the book but still require research? of course this would call for a lowered treasure value...

[zitro1987]

I think Seravy's Year 1412 and accumulated RP are my favorite options. I agree with Seravy in that a typical player does not get ahead as much as Nelphine in research. His playing is beyond the ordinary player in most CoM matters.

[Nelphine]

So, make it year 1416-difficulty (1415 for easy, 1410 for lunatic)? That puts expert at 1412 but reduces it a bit for for the others. (I'd really prefer 1412 for expert, 1410 for master, 1408 for lunatic, so 1418-2*difficulty. Barbarian ai on lunatic are just silly fast at cracking things.)

If you change it to book/retort if earlier though I'm satisfied. To me as a preference those are better, although that has nothing to do with balance, that's just enjoyment.

I also definitely prefer year instead of RP - that just means halfling/dark elf sagemaster becomes mandatory for treasure hunting.

[Seravy]

Higher difficulty games are EXACTLY where I'd least want my opponents to find a very rare spell too early. So scaling based on difficulty level sounds bad. I think 1412 is fair for all levels - books are better than single spells anyway so getting the treasure early is not gong to be viewed as a problem by players. I'm unsure if we want to limit it to books only, or book/retort both as normal "1 pick" treasure? I'd probably prefer books only.

[Nelphine]

Right but pushing it to 1412 in lunatic means the same thing as saying 'no very rare spells in treasure ever'. The ai will have rare spells, and possibly very rare spells researched before 1410 let alone 1412, so even if the human doesn't go for treasure the AI will clear it all out by then. I haven't done enough master to confirm, but I believe a large number of master games will be the same.

My 1416-difficty is meant to represent roughly when it's reasonable on that difficult to reach mid rare tier through standard research and therefore be when an early very rare isn't an issue. My 1420-2*difficulty I think is actually closer to reality, but I'm not sure you want normal/advanced that late.

Basically on lunatic if you can't deal with a very rare in 1408 you've already lost just due to the rest of the AI power.

Yes 1 book/retort. I'm also fine with it being only a book.

[zitro1987]

I'd be ok either way, though the possibility of granting 1 retort may be slightly more rewarding for what is otherwise an alternative to stronger 'v rare' treasure in early game.

[Seravy]

Well in most of the AI test games I ran BEFORE the research cost changes, the Lunatic AI didn't have very rares that early. (unless they found one in treasure which we are removing now)
Considering the costs went up but the pacing remained the same, I'd expect the AI to still not have very rares before 1410 (or even 12) on Lunatic except in same very rare extreme cases.
Rare spells they will have but rare spells in treasure will not be affected by this change - you'll be able to find them.