Wizard changes: Picks & retorts

[ConjurerDragon]

... Famous is a crap ability as is, what's wrong with giving people a starting hero of their choice once we've balanced the early heroes? ...

Famous is no crap ability. It might become less important in longer games, but at the game start the +10 to fame mean that you have to pay -10 gold for your army. And that means that your starting units and the first few you produce do not cost you any gold.

It attracts more and better heroes more often, plus more merchants ( with items ) and mercenaries, doubling the chance for that.

[I like Serena]

Famous is no crap ability. It might become less important in longer games, but at the game start the +10 to fame mean that you have to pay -10 gold for your army. And that means that your starting units and the first few you produce do not cost you any gold.

It attracts more and better heroes more often, plus more merchants ( with items ) and mercenaries, doubling the chance for that.

To be exact, at the start of the game your chance of attracting a hero, assuming you have 100 gold, is 0.9% per turn. With Famous the chance is 3.9% per turn! And you only need 50 gold.

[ConjurerDragon]

To be exact, at the start of the game your chance of attracting a hero, assuming you have 100 gold, is 0.9% per turn. With Famous the chance is 3.9% per turn! And you only need 50 gold.

Where is the 0.9% from? The official strategy guide lists as chance that a hero will offer services = ((3%+Fame/25)X2 if Famous) / Heroes Variable with the latter being 1 for 0 heroes and one more for every hero you already have.

Result would be 3% chance per turn for a hero without and 6,8% with "Famous" pick.

Or has that changed after version 1.31?

Edit: And according to the guide the maximum chance to get a hero is 10% which means being famous becomes irrelevant for attracting heros as soon as your fame score becomes larger than 125 (with no hero).

[I like Serena]

Where is the 0.9% from? The official strategy guide lists as chance that a hero will offer services = ((3%+Fame/25)X2 if Famous) / Heroes Variable with the latter being 1 for 0 heroes and one more for every hero you already have.

Result would be 3% chance per turn for a hero without and 6,8% with "Famous" pick.

Or has that changed after version 1.31?

Edit: And according to the guide the maximum chance to get a hero is 10% which means being famous becomes irrelevant for attracting heros as soon as your fame score becomes larger than 125 (with no hero).

The proper formula is actually as follows.

The chance on a hero considering you equals (fame / 25 + 3) / ((heroes + 1) / 2 + 1) percent per turn (all divisions are rounded down).
Being Famous increases your fame by +10.
And being Famous also doubles the chance.
The chance on a hero is capped at a maximum of 10% per turn.

Key here is that the heroes only "consider" you. You still need to meet their requirements (gold, fame, books). As long as your fame is below 25, there are only 10 out of 34 heroes that will present themselves to you.
Since the chance on each hero is the same, this means that your chance is on a hero at the start of the game equals 3% x 10/34 = 0.9%

[I like Serena]

Here's the table with the chances per turn to get a hero (if you have enough gold and at least 1 life book or 1 death book).

Code:

        Zero heroes    One hired hero    Five heroes    
Fame    NrAvail    Chance    Chance    Chance    Chance    Chance    Chance
    heroes        Famous        Famous        Famous
0    10    0.88    ---    0.29    ---    0.00    ---
1    10    0.88    ---    0.29    ---    0.00    ---
2    10    0.88    ---    0.29    ---    0.00    ---
3    10    0.88    ---    0.29    ---    0.00    ---
4    10    0.88    ---    0.29    ---    0.00    ---
5    15    1.32    ---    0.44    ---    0.00    ---
6    15    1.32    ---    0.44    ---    0.00    ---
7    15    1.32    ---    0.44    ---    0.00    ---
8    15    1.32    ---    0.44    ---    0.00    ---
9    15    1.32    ---    0.44    ---    0.00    ---
10    20    1.76    3.53    0.59    1.18    0.00    0.00
15    20    1.76    3.53    0.59    1.18    0.00    0.00
20    25    2.21    4.41    0.74    1.47    0.00    0.00
25    25    2.94    5.88    1.47    2.94    0.74    1.47
30    25    2.94    5.88    1.47    2.94    0.74    1.47
40    33    3.88    7.76    1.94    3.88    0.97    1.94
50    33    4.85    9.71    1.94    3.88    0.97    1.94
75    33    5.82    9.71    2.91    5.82    0.97    1.94
100    33    6.79    9.71    2.91    5.82    0.97    1.94
125    33    7.76    9.71    3.88    7.76    1.94    3.88
150    33    8.74    9.71    3.88    7.76    1.94    3.88
175    33    9.71    9.71    4.85    9.71    1.94    3.88
200    33    9.71    9.71    4.85    9.71    1.94    3.88
300    33    9.71    9.71    6.79    9.71    2.91    5.82
400    33    9.71    9.71    8.74    9.71    3.88    7.76
500    33    9.71    9.71    9.71    9.71    4.85    9.71
600    33    9.71    9.71    9.71    9.71    5.82    9.71
700    33    9.71    9.71    9.71    9.71    6.79    9.71
800    33    9.71    9.71    9.71    9.71    7.76    9.71
900    33    9.71    9.71    9.71    9.71    8.74    9.71
1000    33    9.71    9.71    9.71    9.71    9.71    9.71

Things to note are:

• It is costly to accept your first hero, because the chance on a second hero is significantly lower
  
• It's nice to start with Famous and Just Cause, but it usually takes you a while before you have 300 gold to be able to hire all available heroes
  
• You need 1000 fame before you don't need Famous any more.
  

[ConjurerDragon]

The proper formula is actually as follows.

The chance on a hero considering you equals (fame / 25 + 3) / ((heroes + 1) / 2 + 1) percent per turn (all divisions are rounded down).
Being Famous increases your fame by +10.
And being Famous also doubles the chance.
The chance on a hero is capped at a maximum of 10% per turn.

Key here is that the heroes only "consider" you. You still need to meet their requirements (gold, fame, books). As long as your fame is below 25, there are only 10 out of 34 heroes that will present themselves to you.
Since the chance on each hero is the same, this means that your chance is on a hero at the start of the game equals 3% x 10/34 = 0.9%

/ 2 + 1 if those are no variables then why not simply +3? Are you sure that is the correct formula?

[I like Serena]

/ 2 + 1 if those are no variables then why not simply +3? Are you sure that is the correct formula?

Agreed. You can simply use +3 / 2.
But yes, this is the correct formula. I took it straight from the machine code that makes up Wizards.exe. This is exactly how it is calculated.

[ConjurerDragon]

I thought it was funny that the original game makes alchemy cost just 1 pick. I guess the designers thought it was a weak pick, only useful to get a little bit of extra gold or mana. But it's actually incredibly strong. First you can turn all your initial mana into gold, to get a faster start.

And cripple your spellcasting at the start of the game doing that.

Then you can turn all your excess gold into mana whenever necessary, basically giving you unlimited mana.

To make this true you would need to have unlimited gold in your game. Mana is simply exchangeable with gold for a wizard with alchemy. But gold is still limited. And when you start to have more gold than you can spend - then normally you have already started to take out nodes and should earn lots of Mana without alchemy.

And of course all the low-tech races need it to get magical weapons (and races like trolls and gnolls really benefit a lot from magical weapons).

That is if you don´t enchant your normal units with spells like flaming sword or such or have mithril/adamantium in your city. Then magical weapons are not that much.

I could see this Alchemy being worth at least 2, maybe even 2.5. Depends on whether you change it to let more races build the alchemists' guild.

The warlord-alchemy combination is so strong that I feel like I could win almost any game just with that.

But what human player can´t win against the AI with almost any picks in most games? I personally find that combination to be bland. It turns MoM more into a military simulation with stronger normal units and you forfeit researching a lot of spells and working with fantastic creatures.

[Catwalk]

While it's not top priority, I'm still interested in minor modifications to costs and effects. As a brief start for the first release, I'd like to swap the following costs:

Myrran <=> Warlord
Myrran races will be a little weaker than now in the mod, and Warlord is by far the strongest retort in the game. Maybe the bonus power for Myrran can be removed as well.

Famous <=> Alchemy
Famous is a decent ability, but not worth 1 pick. Alchemy is way underpriced at 1 pick, both helping you get off to a rapid start and later funding your spellcasting very easily without taking too many resources away from infrastructural development.

Channeler <=> Node Mastery
I very rarely pick Channeler, whereas Node Mastery is a major game breaker.

Please comment on these suggestions, and list any functionality changes you'd like to see for retorts.

[kyrub]

Myrran <=> Warlord
Famous <=> Alchemy

Channeler <=> Node Mastery

I fully agree with the first two. Very simple, very good. Channeler, however, is relatively strong pick and one of my favourite choices. It gives huge mana benefits (50% upkeep) and allows a lot of battle spellcasting.

I'd much rather see:
Divine Power <=> Node Mastery