Wizard changes: Picks & retorts

[Catwalk]

I'm not a fan of Channeler (especially since it stacks by addition rather than multiplication), but I agree that Divine Power is a better match.

Do you know if any of the retort functionality can be changed reasonably easily?

[Incanur]

Channeler works well in conjunction with Conjurer for summoning swarms of hell hounds on the cheap. I agree it's overpriced, but the chaos rush strategy wins games if your opponents are close enough.

[Asfex]

i think,retorts cost depends of spell usefulness.(its a reason,why any realms of magic have direct-damage spells).
Once i play a game with increased chanses to hire mercenaries.and i found that i need gold much more than mana.therefore alchemy cost less than famous.
So,its a best way to change cost of retorts.

[kyrub]

I think we agreed on these changes in pick cost?

Myrran (3) <=> Warlord (2)
Famous (2) <=> Alchemy (1)
Divine Power (1) <=> Node Mastery (2)

Other things mentioned in the thread (od Dragonsword):

Charismatic

Also, how about letting Charismatic wizards start out with +150 gold?

Decrease the prices from 50% to 25% (this could make some item buys / recruitments interesting)


Divine power / Infernal power
separate their effects, see other thread


Runemaster + Artificer
=> destroyed items give only 25% mana
(I could see Artificer give "magic" weapons to armies instead of Alchemy, but that is probably not on the table now)


Conjurer
50% upkeep on magic creatures (25% discount on casting). Conjurer + Channeler => 25% upkeep

Mana focusing
- give extra +5 bonus for yearly mana income (similar to Archmage)
- increase bonus from 25% -> 33%
- kyrub: take upkeep bonus from Channeler (make it 1 pick) and put it here. Reason: Channeler is a battle wizard skill, Mana focusing is good for mana economy.


Spell cost / Research cost

Code:

Books | New bonus | Old bonus
1          0%         0%
2          0%         0%
3          0%         0%
4          5%         0%
5         10%         0%
6         15%         0%
7         20%         0%
8         25%        10%
9         30%        20%
10        35%        30%
11        40%        40%

Chaos, Nature, Sorcery Mastery +15%
Sage master +25%

(and: no researched spells at the beginning?)


What does interest you? Or do you want Catnip 1.0 closed as quick as possible?

[Catwalk]

I think we agreed on these changes in pick cost?
Myrran (3) <=> Warlord (2)
Famous (2) <=> Alchemy (1)
Divine Power (1) <=> Node Mastery (2)
...
Charismatic
+150 starting gold
Decrease the prices from 50% to 25% (this could make some item buys / recruitments interesting)
...
Divine power / Infernal power
separate their effects, see other thread
...
Runemaster + Artificer
=> destroyed items give only 25% mana
(I could see Artificer give "magic" weapons to armies instead of Alchemy, but that is probably not on the table now)
...
Conjurer
50% upkeep on magic creatures (25% discount on casting). Conjurer + Channeler => 25% upkeep
...
Mana focusing
- give extra +5 bonus for yearly mana income (similar to Archmage)
- increase bonus from 25% -> 33%
- kyrub: take upkeep bonus from Channeler (make it 1 pick) and put it here. Reason: Channeler is a battle wizard skill, Mana focusing is good for mana economy.

Check on all of those, and I'd love to have artificer give magic weapons to normal units. If we do that though, I'm not sure if Alchemy should be 2 picks. Also, Channeler is a weak pick as is. Are you able to set it to half mana cost instead of x1? I'd find it to be a good skill at x0.5 as a 1 cost pick without the upkeep reduction.

Spell cost / Research cost

Code:

Books | New bonus | Old bonus
1          0%         0%
2          0%         0%
3          0%         0%
4          5%         0%
5         10%         0%
6         15%         0%
7         20%         0%
8         25%        10%
9         30%        20%
10        35%        30%
11        40%        40%

Chaos, Nature, Sorcery Mastery +15%
Sage master +25%

(and: no researched spells at the beginning?)

Check on that as well. We were discussing using I Like Serena's program to tweak starting spells, as that was impossible for you to do. Is that still the case?

What does interest you? Or do you want Catnip 1.0 closed as quick as possible?

Not in any kind of hurry, the more features you feel like adding the merrier. I'm procrastinating notoriously lately because I started studying a month ago Which is going great, but it's taken up a lot of nerding time.

[kyrub]

Channeler is a weak pick as is. Are you able to set it to half mana cost instead of x1? I'd find it to be a good skill at x0.5 as a 1 cost pick without the upkeep reduction.

Channeler is not a weak pick now, as many of us see. But (since we change our work modus from long_discussion, to act_by_trial) let's try your suggestion. Channeler will make all spells cast as if they were in your fortress (at half price), 1 pick. At least I will still love this one, hehe.

Check on that as well. We were discussing using I Like Serena's program to tweak starting spells, as that was impossible for you to do. Is that still the case?

I find the starting condition one of the biggest stumbling blocks in Catnip discussions. Can we leave it for now?

Technical note: ILSe's customizer is a genious tool. But if it is not permanently connected to running Catnip (e.g. Catnip cannot be started without it), it's role will probably stay optionnal. Someone will use it, others not. In tournament, great. Outside of it, lots of people will probably ignore the setup rules. That's not good in my eyes. I don't know if it can be changed. ILSe?

The options from inside the code are certainly more limited. It is also a lot of work - and I won't do that if I am not convinced by your setup ideas (which, frankly, I was not so far by a long way).

[I like Serena]

Technical note: ILSe's customizer is a genious tool. But if it is not permanently connected to running Catnip (e.g. Catnip cannot be started without it), it's role will probably stay optionnal. Someone will use it, others not. In tournament, great. Outside of it, lots of people will probably ignore the setup rules. That's not good in my eyes. I don't know if it can be changed. ILSe?

What are you thinking of?
Something like it's only possible to start Catnip from the Customizer?
I guess the Customizer could adapt the program so it won't run stand-alone anymore.......

Currently most changes the Customizer makes are straight into MAGIC.EXE, permanently.
For instance, if you increase the landmass to Pantagruel, any time you start MoM without the Customizer, large landmass will correspond to Pantagruel.

The initial spells conditions are currently not implemented in the Customizer yet, but there's only a prototype in the Tweaker.
What the Customizer should do, is adjust the initial save file produced by MAGIC.EXE (the setup phase).

What I could do is adjust MAGIC.EXE in such a way that it doesn't automatically start WIZARDS.EXE anymore.
Or that it adjusts the initial save file, so WIZARDS.EXE can not read it anymore, before the Customizer has had a chance to modify it.

Any thoughts?

[Catwalk]

Hey ILSe, sorry for not being in touch for a while I'm slow with MoM stuff as always, but we're making progress. I'm glad you're still around and interested in helping out, your help is highly valuable.

I know what you're saying kyrub. Still, this is a mostly isolated feature that can be turned on or off and the game will still function fine. If the tweaker is user friendly enough that anyone who cares to use it can do so easily, it's not a huge concern for me if others just choose not to use it. It can easily be packed along with the other Catnip stuff, and easy instructions posted. Barring any technical magic that doesn't seem to be within the bounds of reason, it's an okay solution to me. There are huge benefits to being able to mess with starting spells, as there are several glaring problems with the standard mechanism:
1) 11 books is just way too strong. Generally speaking, I believe that the game options should be well balanced. Same with races, I don't want any races to be mere "challenge" races or riff raff you might capture from time to time because it's better than razing them.
2) 2-3 books in a colour is way too strong. 2 books lets you get the best common spell, 3 books lets you add the 2nd best common spell on top. Then you have most of what the realm's common spells have to offer you, and more books are somewhat a waste.
3) The lack of any kind of control over non-common spells (unless you go for 11 books) makes long-term planning frustrating. Adding minor control in a non-random way (mixing guaranteed spells, random spells and starting spells) makes for more interesting decisions.

Even if the tweaker is not the perfect way to do it, this is well worth it IMO. Details of spell selection are very much up for discussion still, btw. Do we all agree on the casting and research discounts kyrub listed?

[I like Serena]

I just thought up another solution, which may appeal to you.

What I can do is create an old DOS program.
(Should be easy since most of my code is basic C++ which I can still compile in Borland C++ 3.2)

Everything you may want to configure could be done in a catnip-custom-config file.


Then we could replace MAGIC.EXE by a pre-customizer program that reads a Catnip-config file, adjusts MAGIC.EXE accordingly, and then runs this MAGIC.EXE.

Afterward MAGIC.EXE starts WIZARDS.EXE, which would also be replaced by a post-customizer program that would adjust the initial save file and also the WIZARDS.EXE program according to the catnip-config file.

Finally the post-customizer program would kick off the WIZARDS.EXE program.

[Catwalk]

Let me try to translate techno mumbo jumbo into English: You can create a program that is run automatically and handles all of this. Wonderful!

What exactly will the startup process be? Imagine that you need to allow for starting, guaranteed and random spells (only change I have in mind for this).