Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[spottedshroom]

I've observed discrepancies between the reported build time and the actual build time in the vanilla game, but never spent the time to pin it down. In particular, I think I saw this with stacks of engineers not reducing the build time versus a single engineer. Dwarven engineers do seem to be faster than others, though.

[zitro1987]

I remember the 'tweaker' tool's "construction" variable working for me when I was modding. Changing construction from 1 to 2 sped things up to a reasonable degree.

[Seravy]

I think I know the problem.

Road building works like this.

1. If remaining turns counter >0 subtract 1 from the "remaining turns" counter of road building on the unit and the unit is done for the turn.
2. If remaining turns counter =0 and it's the end of the road, build it and mark the unit idle.
3. If remaining turns counter =0 and it's not the end of the road the remaining turns counter=turns it takes to build the next part of the road, then the stack is allowed to move as though it was normal "going" units. However, if any later unit in the stack falls under "1." or "2." then this effect is cleared.
4. While moving, build a road on the tile the unit starts from. This only happens if the last units in the stack did "3." otherwise the stack does not move.

Problems :
-If there is 1 turn left to build the road, it goes to 0 but the road is not built. So it actually always takes 1 more turn to build the road on all map squares.
-If multiple engineers are building, all of their building capacity is kept track on all engineers, so the first one completing the road means the road is actually done. Despite that, the code will fail building the road if the last engineer in the stack is not theone completing it. So adding an extra engineer to build in the already working stack will slow down the building instead of speeding it up.

Correct should be "if ANY engineer is done, move the stack and build road" and checking for completing should happen immediately after subtracting 1.
Furthermore, as is, if an engineer fails to move, they will not build the road which is bad. 4. should be done as part of 3 instead.

tl; dr version, this is a total mess, no wonder it's not working right.

[Seravy]

By the way exactly how fast do we want engineers to build?
As is, it displays 7 turns for a nearby city (1 tile grasslands, 1 tile river, 1 tile mountain in between) for one engineer building at double speed. Without fixing the bug that takes 14 actual turns to complete, but if we fix it, the 7 turns will be the effective amount. I start to think doubling their speed is not needed, fixing the bug improves it by the same amount.

Edit : fixed the bug.
There is an interesting side effect. If the engineers can build the road in 1 turn, it'll be done immediately and they stay able to move. You can then move them to the next map cell, but that will use up their movement, so in the end you build one road tile and move to the next one each turn, as expected.
The problem starts if the engineers can move more than one tile a turn, in which case they can build, move then build again...perhaps they should not be able to move after they completed the road. In that case however, you would lose turns if building one tile at a time.
I'm tempted to say they remain active but lose all but 0.5 movement, in which case they definitely won't be able to build again but...windwalkers and ships can still move them lol. Not sure what to do with this, it's broken either way. Engineers don't store the information of "I already built this turn" lol
...actually nevermind. Even if I make them unable to move, a windwalker can still reactivate them to build again anyway. Also, we're talking about a game where you can just build twice as many engineers for minimal cost, or summon roads without using some. So what, there is a new exploit for building roads lol, it's not the end of the world.

[Seravy]

2.3 is now available for download!

Major changes to Elemental Armor, Resist Elements, how the AI casts anti-realm type spells (True Sight, Elemental Armor, Resist Elements, Resist Magic, Magic Immunity), and large changes to retorts!

2.3
-There are 2 more nodes on Arcanus and 2 fewer on Myrror. (18-12)
-Arcanus nodes have 5-12 aura tiles. Myrran nodes have 10-20.
-Nodes produce an additional +5 power (multiplied by the magic power setting) each.
-Fixed bug : AI fails to target anything with Warp Node
-Magic Immunity no longer protects from Breath attacks (Fire Breath, Lightning Breath). It still protects from any other magic special attack (gaze, touch etc).
-Resist Elements now grants defense against all magical ranged attacks and spells, but resistance only against Nature realm (petrification)
-Elemental Armor now grants +12 defense against all magical ranged attacks and spells, but no resistance.
-AI is now better able to tell when Resist Elements, Bless, Resist Magic, Magic Immunity and Elemental Armor is needed.
-Mercenaries that appear after turn 100 have magical weapons.
-AI has an increased preference of razing cities scaled up proportionally based on the total cost of summoned units remaining in the army after combat (units with more than 5 damage do not count) and land size. Formula is, added raze chance in % = (Total cost of fantastic creatures*Land Size)/144 where Land Size is 0 for Tiny, 1 for Small, 2 for Fair, 3 for Large and 4 for Huge.
The intended purpose is for AI doom stacks to keep advancing and conquering instead of getting stuck in a city and needing to rebuild the stack.
-Lawful wizards personality modifier for razing is now -25 instead of -200 (and still +25 if holding a grudge over a broken treaty)
-AI can now pick Guardian without having Life books properly.
-Merged retorts : Chaos Mastery, Nature Mastery and Sorcery Mastery into Specialist : All spells of the wizard's primary realm cost 15% less to cast, research of such spells is 15% faster, and enchantments of that realm are twice as hard to dispel. Node bonuses are no longer part of this ability, Node Mastery is required for that.
-New retort : Tactician. All of the wizard's units have +1 DEF during combat, and heroes receive +2 DEF, RES and all attack strengths instead.
-New retort : Overlord. All of the wizard's cities pay double taxes. All cities of a different race are razed automatically after conquest. Overlord cannot be found in treasure.
-Dwarves can now build a marketplace (but it does not produce double gold)
-AI default Myrran wizards will now take Chaneller to replace it instead of Cult Leader.
-Cult Leader now costs 1 pick.
-New retort : Astrologer. Gain +50% overland only casting skill (added as hero bonus) and the effects of Node Mastery (which is replaced by this), costs 2 picks.
-Fixed engineer bug : Engineer has to wait a turn after completing a road before it appears.
-Fixed engineer bug : Engineer cancels road if being unable to move to the next map cell.
-Fixed engineer bug : Engineer has to wait until all engineers in the stack complete bulding the current road, even if one of them joined later and is several turns behind.

Edit : Reuploaded, forgot to reduce Magic Immunity cost to 50 and apply an AI change before uploading.

[spottedshroom]

Awesome. Will the road building fix end up in your 1.5 patch as well?

[Seravy]

Awesome. Will the road building fix end up in your 1.5 patch as well?

It should be but probably wont for a while, if ever, see : http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...63&page=27
After these trolls I'm not in the mood to work on the 1.50 patch. First kyrub leaves and then the insecticide project ends up my responsibility for the obvious reason of having no one else around able and willing to do it, I put out 500+ patches despite not even using the 1.50 myself - I only play CoM - and then when these retards post ideas in kyrub's dead thread and I reply to help, I get this treatment.

[Rannous]

Jerks everywhere - ignore 'em.

[Seravy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD4VaYeEQnE

The game I played yesterday. Only normal difficulty since I played to make sure there are no bugs and I can release the update.
Astrologer + Overlord + Channeller +7 Chaos books.

[spottedshroom]

It should be but probably wont for a while, if ever, see : http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...63&page=27
After these trolls I'm not in the mood to work on the 1.50 patch. First kyrub leaves and then the insecticide project ends up my responsibility for the obvious reason of having no one else around able and willing to do it, I put out 500+ patches despite not even using the 1.50 myself - I only play CoM - and then when these retards post ideas in kyrub's dead thread and I reply to help, I get this treatment.

Well, that fucking sucks. Your 1.50 patch is fantastic. CoM seems great, too, but I personally prefer a little more of the original flavor.