Sorry, I meant when you have flying units (not ranged), your neutral AI units just move around or teleport around. I find it completely unnecessary and tedious because:
_it prolongs the battle duration (in turns and actual time) with no added benefit to neutral AI (neutral AI can't cast spells)
_your flying units are going to eventually reach and attack the opponent.
_if your flying units are ranged, they will still hit enemy neutral AI anyways.
I am also not a huge fan of flying neutral AI not attacking when all your melee units are melee in some instances when those neutral flying units are not too strong. At the very least, they can pick a target and damage/kill it.
real animals are also easily enraged if someone enters their zone of control. but it's not about realism, it's about having more fun when playing the game against other players i can at least rampage through the city even if i can't attack their units. but against neutrals i can't do anything. not being able to conquer that sorcery node because dwarves have no unit that can attack an air elemental (and it won't attack me) is disappointing. it would be good if there was some way to solve this.
yes lines of text closer together would work. in my oppinion, item traits could have higher book requirements in general (why not need 6 or 7 sorcery books for haste? maybe make it cheaper in return). just make sure you can at least put something for every 1 book on every kind of item. could replace resist magic by another effect that belongs to another realm, or remove it. we have the +resist option anyways (maybe that should be cheaper?). i also don't think we need both, teleport and merging.
Quote:with no added benefit to neutral AI (neutral AI can't cast spells)
Not being able to attack the unit with all your fliers at the same turn is a huge benefit because of how suppression works. If you attack a unit with 6 fliers in the same turn, the retaliation to the second has -1 To Hit, the next has -2 and so on. Depending on the enemy, only the first, or first few units risk taking any real damage, the rest can attack and stay safe. If they keep moving randomly, you can't gang up on one unit with everything at once, so they do more retaliation damage to you overall.
Quote:_your flying units are going to eventually reach and attack the opponent.
I actually had a battle where I was forced to retreat with my Gargoyle because the War Bear was faster. Fast units like Spiders can reasonably expect to avoid contact with move 2 flying units like most draconians, unless the attacking army consist of too many units. Yes, in more than half the battles you can catch the enemy, but there are battles where you can not.
Quote:_if your flying units are ranged, they will still hit enemy neutral AI anyways.
The AI won't ever select the "evasion" tactic in this case (unless said ranged units are very low on remaining ammo) but it still has to move around randomly because there is nothing to fight against. This part is not up for change because they MUST be able to search for invisible units which uses the trigger condition, not having a target for a melee attack and that triggers on flyers as well. If this is annoying, summon a catapult, fire elemental, phantom, zombie or anything that walks and they'll come closer and attack it.
...actually why would you care where they are if you have ranged units? Ranged hits anywhere.
btw I said this several times in the past, if you expect a battle like this, turn off movement animations for the battle and it becomes a lot quicker (unless the units teleport, sadly the option can't disable that and I can't fix it, but let's not change gameplay for a bug like that.)
Quote:not being able to conquer that sorcery node because dwarves have no unit that can attack an air elemental (and it won't attack me) is disappointing. it would be good if there was some way to solve this.
There is. You are supposed to say "Hey, dwarves have no way to attack an air elemental, so I'm going to lose there. I'm not attacking that node with them!". Would you attack any other node you know you can't conquer? If not, why this one?
The other option you have is to trick the Air Elemental. Bring weak forces. Then they'll attack them and you can use direct damage when they are close enough to be visible. It's not a convenient solution but hey, monsters are out there to make life harder for you, not easier.
Quote:(why not need 6 or 7 sorcery books for haste? maybe make it cheaper in return)
The best Artificier build in the game is Life+Sorcery. Assuming you take Artificier, you have at most 5 books of each realm (maybe 6 from one of them but definitely not both) and that requires not taking other realms or retorts which is already quite restricting. In general I want it to be possible to get the best powers from any two realms at the same time without having to find new books, using the initial 12 picks, even if one is spent on Artificier.
That said I plan to raise the cost of a few things : Lion Heart and Diving Protection will both cost 5 Life books. They are far the best defensive powers in the game. I'm not 100% sure they are good enough to cost this much though.
I'm not sure you need to allow combinations of the most powerful and alchemy. It's fine to make people choose one or the other, given how good heroes are.
I'd make wraith form take 3 books (I know it's a common spell but it's controversial at common already, and its very strong on heroes when it can't be dispelled.)
I'd make Teleport ing take 6 books, merging take 6 nature books, and haste take 7. However given your wishes I'd make haste take 6 books. Someone has to really go for the top end abilities, but they still can.
(On a side note this whole 'multiple realms' thing throws me off. I find single realm strategies to be extremely good on impossible. But I'm not going to argue.)
(October 5th, 2016, 10:11)Nelphine Wrote: (On a side note this whole 'multiple realms' thing throws me off. I find single realm strategies to be extremely good on impossible. But I'm not going to argue.)
They are, but they are also boring and if you face whichever the realm is weak against then you have a bad day.
Teleporting and Merging are far from essential, and it's usually what I don't put into my items due to lack of slots anyway. Teleporting in particular is most useful for pure Sorcery wizards who have no access to Endurance otherwise.
Infinite movement is of course good to have but a +4 Movement item is almost as good, and only melee heroes really need it. I don't mind increasing the cost of these two.
Haste, yes, 6 instead of 5 is an option but considering it no longer allows double counterattacks, and the second attack only comes after retaliation even if you had First Strike, I don't know if it is really worth that much. The "I take no damage and kill everything by counterattacking in just one turn" abuse of Haste is no longer possible.
If anything, I rather make Phantasmal cost more books, not Haste.
Wraith Form, I don't think so. 2 books is already a pretty steep requirement from a realm that contributes nothing to heroes otherwise.
Alchemy...well, idk if I was playing artificier heroes I would probably take Tactician and Famous instead for my 12th pick and it's already a big limitation that I can only have one of them.
Update! This one should improve how the AI plays against various global enchantments, and how the create artifact and item editor screens look like.
2.92
-Chaos Rift now costs 200
-Meteor Storm no longer hits own units.
-The AI will cast the following unit enchantments at a higher priority if Meteor Storms are in effect : Elemental Armor, Bless, Resist Elements, Iron Skin, Regeneration, Magic Immunity, Invulnerability.
-The AI will cast more Chaos Channels if Chaos Surge is in effect.
-The AI will almost never cast the following spells if Suppress Magic is in effect and another spell of the same category is available : Resist Elements, Resist Magic, Holy Armor, Heroism, True Sight, Cloak of Fear, Waterwalking, Planar Travel, Blizzard, random Spell Blast, Stasis, Corruption, Raise Volcano, Black Wind, Drain Power.
-The AI will not cast Call the Void while Nature's Wrath is in effect. The AI will cast it at a higher priority if Suppress Magic is in effect.
-The AI will never summon the following creatures if Meteor Storm is in effect : War Bears, Nagas, Sprites, Giant Spiders, Hell Hounds, Unicorns, Skeletons, Ghouls, and will summon Cockatrices half as often.
-The AI will summon Chaos creatures at a higher priority if Chaos Surge is in effect, with greater focus on Hydras, Chimeras and Gargoyles.
-The AI will not summon the following creatures during Suppress Magic : War Bears, Nagas, Sprites, Giant Spiders, Floating Island, Hell Hounds, Gargoyles, Fire Giants, Skeletons, Ghouls, Magic Spirits, Cockatrices.
-The AI will priorize summoning these creatures higher during Suppress Magic : Gorgons, Behemoths, Colossus, Great Wyrms, Djinn, Sky Drake, Hydra, Great Drake, Archangel, Wraiths, Death Knights, Demon Lords.
-The AI will not cast the following spells during a Nature's Wrath : Storm Giant, Chaos Spawn, Angel, Wraiths, Summon Champion, Enchant Item, Create Artifact.
-The AI will cast the following spells during a Nature's Wrath at a lower priority : Djinn, Sky Drake, Hydra, Great Drake, Efreet, Archangel, Death Knights, Demon Lord, Resurrection.
-When the AI decides if they need to build more ships, they count ships per plane instead of globally.
-There is no more constant recalculation of town data for every gametick during the human player's turn, which caused lag near the end of games with many towns. Instead, recalculation is done exactly once on the main screen after any of the following : Changing taxes, casting a spell, end of the turn, entering the production screen, building a road, cancelling a global enchantment, opening a town screen.
-Pressing “X” on the city screen to move to the next city now skips outposts.
-Adjusted positioning of text on the Enchant Item screen so more item powers can be displayed.
-Divine Protection now requires 4 Life books to enchant into an artifact.
-Lion Heart now requires 5 Life books to enchant into an artifact.
-Bows can have at most 3 movement.
-Staves and Wands now have more options for Defense, Attack and Resistance.
-Teleportation now requires 6 Sorcery books to enchant into an artifact.
-AI wizards will not cast Holy Weapon overland if they already researched Holy Arms (even if it is not yet in effect)
Yeah. I 100% disagree with your statements about real world animals. The mother bear guarding her forest node wouldn't ever run away, because presumably her infants are inside. Fantasy monsters in fiction and games usually are bloodthirsty and never run away, most enemies fit in this category.
Having something like 1 spider who can run away from 8 draconians is boring as heck. It's also not fair in anyway because ai players do not face the same limitations at all.
100% if it's too hard to add, don't add it. I don't want you to waste your time on such a minor issue. It makes no sense though and only makes the game less fun. There's no benefit to the neutrals to managing to stall out the battle, you can simply attack them again the following turn.
That said I never knew suppression existed before now! So maybe that's a legitimate reason to have the mechanic in. I do not think your other arguments as to why you don't want to do this are valid though. If it's too hard to do, don't do it. If it's imbalanced somehow towards making the game too easy don't do it (even though the ai already doesn't face this). I don't think real world animal logic applies in this case though.
EDIT: now that meteor storm is much better, maybe it should cost more? It doesn't have the targetting limitations of either final/great alternatives.
-AI wizards are now allowed to play High Elf even if their starting capital is not on a Forest tile.
-Lizardmen settlers now cost 120.
-Lizardmen population growth bonus is now +12 instead of +15 and outpost bonus is +30 instead of +40 (these are still the highest for any race in the game.)
-Lizardmen units no longer have +1 armor as a racial bonus, they only have +1 health now.
-Wizards generated on Hard and above difficulty use an entirely new algorithm – Main change is, books and retorts are selected first, then the closest predefined wizard's portrait is chosen, instead of the portrait selected first and that wizard's data determining the choices. This makes sure all realms and realm combinations are selected equally, and that the portrait choice of other wizards does not influence what wizards can play.
-Wizards generated now have a different table for weights on selecting Personality and Objective for each realm and retort.
Small, but probably very high impact update!
The way the game generates wizards for hard and higher difficulty is completely new. You can see more detailed information in the predefined wizards thread.
I'll leave the previous version online for some time so people can compare the two easier.
Please let me know what you think, I believe this is a big step forward to having more interesting games, but ofc it's new so no games have been played yet against the new wizards.
Ghouls with focus magic are kinda overpowered (gives ghouls 6 ranged magical attack) with their ability to create undead. And you can have this combo right from the start of the game. Seravy, can you please nerf this combo somehow?
against other players i can at least rampage through the city even if i can't attack their units. but against neutrals i can't do anything. not being able to conquer that sorcery node because dwarves have no unit that can attack an air elemental (and it won't attack me) is disappointing. it would be good if there was some way to solve this.