Caster of Magic II Brainstorming Megathread

[Suppanut]

May I request for script for combat's info screen display of ability? Currently new global enchantment or city enchantment that effect combat could display their effect properly

[Suppanut]

I found that entercombat.cas is currently take the cake as the most time draining script of all moddable script I try my hand on. At first think something that run once per combat would be saving grace for some feature on unit stat but it end up even less efficient time-wise than unitcalc.cas and unitcalcpre.cas. it add time on end turn from 20 seconds down to 5 minutes or even more than 10 minutes if condition not optimized enough.

Why it end up like this?

[drake178]

I found that entercombat.cas is currently take the cake as the most time draining script of all moddable script I try my hand on. At first think something that run once per combat would be saving grace for some feature on unit stat but it end up even less efficient time-wise than unitcalc.cas and unitcalcpre.cas. it add time on end turn from 20 seconds down to 5 minutes or even more than 10 minutes if condition not optimized enough.

Why it end up like this?

It's probably run for every simulated battle done to select targets.

[Suppanut]

May I request road construction display ability to display construction value? Now only vateran players would know that dwarf engineers build faster and endurance actually buff construction speed.

[Anskiy]

Is it possible to support new spells that only affect fantastic units in the next version?

[CreepyCaster]

Can you make "NormalPenalty" in the spells.ini file NOT affect Heroes?

Right now there is no way to differentiate Hero spell saves from other types of units.  I wanted to mod the Confusion spell to make Heroes more resistant to it.

Making "NormalPenalty" not apply to Heroes is a straight forward solution. (Basically all saves become relative to Heroes)

[CreepyCaster]

Can you provide mod values for both Weakness and Focus Magic in the MODDING.INI similar to how Flame Blade values can be modded?

For example:

WeaknessAttackPenalty=-3
WeaknessToHitPenalty=0 (New spell attribute to make the spell scale well vs powerful units)

In the early game, -3 attack power makes many units such a non-threat that it's nearly equivalent to killing them.  I want Weakness to be a low-cost, spammable debilitating spell, not a kill spell.
(I would set the value of WeaknessAttackPenalty to -1 attack instead of -3 and set WeaknessToHitPenalty to -7% thus making the spell useful against both weak units with a low attack strength (-1 attack) and strong units with a high attack strength (-7% ToHit))


FocusMagicAttackBonus=3
FocusMagicCastingAbility=15
FocusMagicAmmoMin=3
FocusMagicAmmoBonus=1 (New spell attribute to allow Focus Magic to buff caster ammo beyond providing a minimum of 3 ammo for units given a new magic attack)


I noticed Suppanut elevated Focus Magic from Common up to being an Uncommon Sorcery spell in his Warlord mod. +3 magic attack is extremely powerful and when cast upon Magicians allows them to start melting enemy units in combat to a degree that makes the game easy mode and not fun.  An additional +15 casting ability also allows Magicians to cast Fireball TWICE in combat.  I personally modded Focus Magic to be a RARE Sorcery spell as a result.

[Seravy]

You should already be able to do that by using UnitCalc.CAS, either directly or by creating a new custom enchantment ID and redirecting Weakness to cast that spell.

Heroes are normal units and in fact the Annihilate spell takes advantage of this fact. This will require a separate HeroPenalty parameter.

[CreepyCaster]

Heroes are normal units and in fact the Annihilate spell takes advantage of this fact. This will require a separate HeroPenalty parameter.

No it won't. I'm NOT suggesting Heroes be unaffected by "Normal Only" spells.  I'm only suggesting they be differentiated from Normal units when it comes to how "NormalPenalty" works.

The example you mention, Annihilate, is the ONLY spell that uses NormalPenalty.  Its save penalties are set as follows by default:

SavePenalty=-5
NormalPenalty=-2

(Heroes -7, Normal -7, Fantastic -5)

If NormalPenalty had no effect on Hero saves, then the numbers could be set like this to have the exact same effect:

SavePenalty=-7
FantasticPenalty=2 <== notice positive save penalty

(Heroes -7, Normal -7, Fantastic -5)

Any possible combination of new save penalty settings necessary to duplicate existing save penalty settings remains intact with such a change. (Apparently Annihilate is the ONLY spell that would be effected and need these minor tweaks to its settings.)

As things are now, it's impossible to differentiate Hero saves from other normal units.  They're inextricably combined together.  I find this uncomfortable from a spell balance perspective with common level "kill" spells in particular such as: Confusion, Black Sleep, etc.  For example, I'd like to set the save penalties on Confusion as follows:

SavePenalty=0
NormalPenalty=-2
FantasticPenalty=-2

(Heroes 0, Normal -2, Fantastic -2)

or maybe even:

SavePenalty=-1
NormalPenalty=-2
FantasticPenalty=-1

(Heroes -1, Normal -3, Fantastic -2)


Basically save settings would become fully relative to Heroes. (Which they already are except for 1 spell)

(The impetus for this was a game I played where my Hero had Confusion land on him.  I had a superior force and easily won the combat but I noticed my Hero was gone after the fight and I was like WTF... my Hero just got 1-shotted by a Common spell?!  I'm now aware of the CCIrrecoverable setting in MODDING.INI and have since set it to 0 but I still feel Confusion needs toning done when used against units as important as Heroes.)

You should already be able to do that by using UnitCalc.CAS, either directly or by creating a new custom enchantment ID and redirecting Weakness to cast that spell.

I was able to figure out how to get a custom implementation of Weakness working.  Thanks for putting this functionality in the game, though I would note it was not a trivial amount of effort getting it working.  I should be able to re-implement other spells much faster now that I know how it all works.

[Seravy]

Oh, we already have a FantasticPenalty? I didn't remember that.

That said I would prefer to keep the naming consistent with the game rules. Heroes are normal units.