Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[vicwaberub]

There should be a heroes chapter somewhere near the end. It might be a bit outdated in some details though.

Thanks, I have found it! Great work, your mod!

[Seravy]

1.32 is up, fixes a major AI naval bug from 1.31b.

1.32
-When the player asks for a Peace Treaty, now the peace interest variable will be used instead of the treaty interest.
-Unit enchantments with 0 maintenance will not get dispelled when out of mana.
-Undead are raised in automatic combat if the winner has Death spellbooks (Life Drain, Syphon Life, Summon Zombie, etc is not required, but amount scales up by the number of Death books), or if the winning army contains Life Steal or Create Undead units.
-AI combatspell priority : Prayer is now +7*number of own units in battle.
-AI combatspell priority : High Prayer is now +7*number of own units in battle.
-AI combatspell priority : Blur is now +4*number of own units in battle.
-AI combatspell priority : Holy Word is not going to be used unless it hits a minimum of 3 figures.
-Fixed bug : AI doesn't lose gold when giving it to the player when being threatened.
-Fixed bug : Leaving the Threathen menu without doing anything still results in a penalty.
-Fixed bug : AI grants a short audience but ends it before the player can do anything.
-Fixed relation value changes causing an overflow when the amount is too high.
-Revised stat gains of normal units on levels. Veterans are more worth it now, and elites are less of an extreme jump in power. Overall amount of stats is roughly the same, except resistence has been reduced significantly, only the Regular and Elite levels grant + to resist now.
-Fixed bug : AI units disembark from the ship into occupied map cells (dungeons, nodes, towns)
-Fixed bug from 1.31b : AI transports suddenly stop and units carried walk into the ocean without the ships.
-Gorgons have +1 melee and -1 better gaze modifier.
-Aura of Majesty now has a maintenance of 5.
-Aether Binding now has a maintenance of 10.

[vicwaberub]

1.32 is up, fixes a major AI naval bug from 1.31b.

1.32
-When the player asks for a Peace Treaty, now the peace interest variable will be used instead of the treaty interest.
-Unit enchantments with 0 maintenance will not get dispelled when out of mana.
-Undead are raised in automatic combat if the winner has Death spellbooks (Life Drain, Syphon Life, Summon Zombie, etc is not required, but amount scales up by the number of Death books), or if the winning army contains Life Steal or Create Undead units.
-AI combatspell priority : Prayer is now +7*number of own units in battle.
-AI combatspell priority : High Prayer is now +7*number of own units in battle.
-AI combatspell priority : Blur is now +4*number of own units in battle.
-AI combatspell priority : Holy Word is not going to be used unless it hits a minimum of 3 figures.
-Fixed bug : AI doesn't lose gold when giving it to the player when being threatened.
-Fixed bug : Leaving the Threathen menu without doing anything still results in a penalty.
-Fixed bug : AI grants a short audience but ends it before the player can do anything.
-Fixed relation value changes causing an overflow when the amount is too high.
-Revised stat gains of normal units on levels. Veterans are more worth it now, and elites are less of an extreme jump in power. Overall amount of stats is roughly the same, except resistence has been reduced significantly, only the Regular and Elite levels grant + to resist now.
-Fixed bug : AI units disembark from the ship into occupied map cells (dungeons, nodes, towns)
-Fixed bug from 1.31b : AI transports suddenly stop and units carried walk into the ocean without the ships.
-Gorgons have +1 melee and -1 better gaze modifier.
-Aura of Majesty now has a maintenance of 5.
-Aether Binding now has a maintenance of 10.

Good work!
Suggestion: When I play a game with an diplomacy approach I can't get a lot of fame. Fame as a reward for freed lairs would be nice and logical, I bring finally peace on Arcanus and Myrror! ;-)

[zitro1987]

Your mod is getting so good.

I still recommend 5 base melee for halberdiers, using your argument that we need a midpoint between low-tier (swordsmen) and high-tier unit. 4 melee (plus racial bonus and experience) just doesn't cut it. It's very hard having them do damage to mid-tier units even with moderate armors.

For majority of races, they are often not worth the cost of a fighter's guild compared to other mid-tier units (mostly because of that lack of melee output but the low resistance can also hurt). They come across as very tough (armor/hp wise) units with low melee and far inferior to multi-figure armorer's guild units like berserkers.

Suggestion 1 (stronger halberdiers): add 1 melee and resistance, same or slightly higher cost
Suggestion 2 (more balanced halberdiers, not necessarily better): add 1 melee, remove 1 armor. slightly lower cost.

[Seravy]

Your mod is getting so good.

I still recommend 5 base melee for halberdiers, using your argument that we need a midpoint between low-tier (swordsmen) and high-tier unit. 4 melee (plus racial bonus and experience) just doesn't cut it. It's very hard having them do damage to mid-tier units even with moderate armors.

For majority of races, they are often not worth the cost of a fighter's guild compared to other mid-tier units (mostly because of that lack of melee output but the low resistance can also hurt). They come across as very tough (armor/hp wise) units with low melee and far inferior to multi-figure armorer's guild units like berserkers.

Suggestion 1 (stronger halberdiers): add 1 melee and resistance, same or slightly higher cost
Suggestion 2 (more balanced halberdiers, not necessarily better): add 1 melee, remove 1 armor. slightly lower cost.

I believe the recent update of Veteran level giving +1 melee instead of Elite should help damage output a lot, although a War College is needed to get that level, it still means 1 extra melee for every unit at the time they are produced.

It might not seem that way, but a standard (Orc) halberdier is 3.5 times more effective that the swordsmen of the same race, but only costs 2.33 times more to build. The advantage is less significant on higher levels, at Veteran, it's only 2.88 times as good as a swordmen and at elite it is indeed not worth the cost, being only 2.16 times stronger. However, the limit of 9 units in a stack still favors units that are stronger even if they are less cost effective. On the other hand, Fighter's Guild is indeed expensive, so this advantage might not be enough afterall.
I'll consider it, but I'm worried it means I would need to revise most other units in the 50-100 cost range, as they were all adjusted relative to halberdiers.

Meanwhile, 1.33 is available for download :

1.33
-AI units can use melee attacks in combat with 0 melee strength if they have a breath, thrown, gaze or touch attack to make the attack still capable of inflicting damage (in theory, actual chance of doing damage is not checked).
-All units will drown at the end of turn if over water without an appropriate ability or transport.
-New movement type stacking procedure that fixes bugs. Additionally, noncorporeal and flight is now mixable, a stack containing both will be considered flying instead of walking.
-AI will not leave city area due to enemy archer advantage if there is a Wall of Shadows
-AI will now compare own army ranged power to enemy when deciding on an attack, instead of requiring a zero own ranged power.
-Fixes a minor bug with AI disembarking
-Hostile actions now reduce the Peace Counter so it's no longer possible to curse enemy cities unpunished during a Peace Treaty.
-Fixed bug introduced in 1.32 : game checks for the wrong players Peace Interest when the player asks for a Peace Treaty
-Fixed bug : shortest path does not recognize enemies in towers
-Generic war declaration formula is slightly stricter now.

[Drax]

Hello Seravy,
I like a lot about your mod. it brings a lot of balance to the game without being overly balanced(i.e. boring).

There is a major bug I'd like to notify you about(present in v1.32):
Towers it seems are considered two separate squares. Several things derive from that:
1) If you guard on one plane, which I often need to do as towers are close to major cities, the enemy can still cross directly without fighting you.
2) If you separate one unit from your guard stack from one plane and go for a walk on the other plane, then return the unit back to the stack and enemy then attacks your stack the unit is not present in the battle. It seems unit is considered on the other plane or something.

Other minor stuff I have noticed:
- Hero animations seem to be mixed. Ranger shows as Barbarian. Wind mage shows as i think Dwarf. I think I saw other wrong ones but can't remember specifics. This is in battle only. On the map it's correct icons.
- Enemy wizards can produce invalid buildings sometimes. For example lizardmen town with wizard's guild.

There are other issues but considering the amount of thought and changes you've put in it's holding pretty well

I'll try to post back whatever I make sense of.

Cheers and thank you!

[Seravy]

Hello Seravy,
I like a lot about your mod. it brings a lot of balance to the game without being overly balanced(i.e. boring).

There is a major bug I'd like to notify you about(present in v1.32):
Towers it seems are considered two separate squares. Several things derive from that:
1) If you guard on one plane, which I often need to do as towers are close to major cities, the enemy can still cross directly without fighting you.
2) If you separate one unit from your guard stack from one plane and go for a walk on the other plane, then return the unit back to the stack and enemy then attacks your stack the unit is not present in the battle. It seems unit is considered on the other plane or something.

Other minor stuff I have noticed:
- Hero animations seem to be mixed. Ranger shows as Barbarian. Wind mage shows as i think Dwarf. I think I saw other wrong ones but can't remember specifics. This is in battle only. On the map it's correct icons.
- Enemy wizards can produce invalid buildings sometimes. For example lizardmen town with wizard's guild.

There are other issues but considering the amount of thought and changes you've put in it's holding pretty well

I'll try to post back whatever I make sense of.

Cheers and thank you!

I'm aware of the tower bug but have no save file to reproduce it. If you have a save file directly prior to the turn when enemy units enter the tower without fighting your units, let me have it. If you know what type of movement, spell or any other effect causes units to be separated between the planes, let me know. My problem here is I have no idea what causes the bug and as far as I can tell it should properly set the "in tower" status before AI turns start, yet it most likely doesn't do it.

Lizardmen can build Wizard's Guilds so it's not a bug. A lot of building restrictions are different from the original game.
Hero animations, I checked both the Ranger and Wind Mage and they had no problem. Are you playing with or without the optional portraits? It shouldn't make a difference though, but maybe it does?

[Drax]

I'm aware of the tower bug but have no save file to reproduce it. If you have a save file directly prior to the turn when enemy units enter the tower without fighting your units, let me have it. If you know what type of movement, spell or any other effect causes units to be separated between the planes, let me know. My problem here is I have no idea what causes the bug and as far as I can tell it should properly set the "in tower" status before AI turns start, yet it most likely doesn't do it.

It seems to be a bit different than I initially imagined.

First I have not seen a case of enemy units entering the tower without a fight. They were appearing right next to the tower on the other plane.

The part where you have units belonging to different planes in the same tower stack seems to be correct. There was a battle later at that tower and I withdrew. What happened is - there were my unit(the one that seemed to belong to the other plane and which did not participate in the battle) and an enemy unit shared the tower square. When you try to select it blinked between the two units.

The part where enemy units managed to pass through the tower may not be true as I found out the wizard doing it had astral gate and was spamming it. So it may have been from astral gates, but they were appearing off the gate cities(distance 3-4) and next to the tower... which made me think that they were passing through the tower.

I don't have a save but I'll look out to get one if I can.

Lizardmen can build Wizard's Guilds so it's not a bug. A lot of building restrictions are different from the original game.

Ok then. I had a lizardmen town and could not build the guild but enemy had it so I thought it was a bug. Maybe I've missed something.

Hero animations, I checked both the Ranger and Wind Mage and they had no problem. Are you playing with or without the optional portraits? It shouldn't make a difference though, but maybe it does?

Here is a screen. http://prntscr.com/9vki4p
Jaer seems to use the animation from the Dwarf and Morgana seems to be using the one from the Dervish.

[vicwaberub]

I play a game as Lizardman and build a Wizards Guild. But I can't build magicans? Is this a bug? (CoM v1.31).

[Seravy]

I play a game as Lizardman and build a Wizards Guild. But I can't build magicans? Is this a bug? (CoM v1.31).

Lizardmen magicians don't exist. I can't enable units that doesn't exist, no graphics for them, and not possible to add new units without removing another anyway. The main point of Wizard's Guild is the +10 power production, getting magicians is a nice extra on races that have them, but races that don't can still build it for power and research. Just like how you can build Cathedral even if you aren't playing High Men to get Paladins.