DEATH Realm

[Seravy]

6. Anyrhing wrong with using your original stats, and combat only (with undead lasting past combat)? Or is that too niche and doesn't actually fix anything?

That, yes. And it's also not AI friendly. AI players use buffs when they're ahead because they can't tell if a buff really is enough to turn a balanced or lost battle around. But in that situation, using a buff with a permanent disadvantage is silly. Even if the AI doesn't suffer all that much from a unit being undead.

7. Black channels with original game stats, useable on any creature, and call the loss of HP when dispelled an extra drawback for how powerful it can be? (Allow it to be cast on undead as well so you can partially counteract this.) Could also give it inherent double dispel protection (stacking with specialist and rubemaster) as well.

I already explained why I consider the original a worthless spell.

New bezerk idea: bezerk drops defense to zero as before (can be buffed). Bezerk adds 2 movement and 4 melee and thrown/breath strength. (Teach AI to only use it on things with at least movement 3.)

Interesting. But haven't we concluded movement boosts are a bad thing in the Chaos thread? Put this on a magician and you have no drawback (it could care less about losing its 3 armor) but it can run around the battlefield for the entire combat and never die. On top of dealing melee damage if actually caught. On the other hand on a melee unit it still sucks if it doesn't regenerate. Okay, it'll reach and kill one thing on turn one, IF you are the defender. Then it gets killed anyway. And unlike original berserk, here that one thing is not worth it, +4 melee will not get you a dead sky drake.

Totally new spell idea: global

See above, no free global enchantment slot, summon slot, city enchantment slot.
We can only do unit enchantment because we are replacing one right now.

I'm very against the bloodlust option due to strategic combat.

About half the existing spells do nothing for the AI in strategic combat, so I fail to see how this is relevant here. We'll have 101 such spells instead of 100.

This includes every combat spell (direct damage, unit curse, combat summon, combat global enchantments), and all unit buffs that are already conditional such as Invulnerability, Elemental Armor, Magic Immunity, Guardian Wind, Spell Lock, Immolation, Cloak of Fear, Wraith Form, Bless, Resist Elements, Resist Magic, True Sight, Invisibility.

If we really want to, we can definitely do something like "each buff on a unit adds +10% to its defense and attack rating for strategic combat" the problem with that is...it would not get included in AI decisions and might make a buff that is otherwise irrelevant matter. So I rather not, it's not helping much and is a lot of work.

Let me ask a question. Why does it matter to me, the human player, if all AI players have spells cast on units that have no effect against each other, only me? It does not involve me, and since every realm is equally hurt by this, it doesn't have a large influence on which AI comes out on top. Each AI player has about 20-40 spells in a game out of which half are spells that don't work on other AI. The chance of rolling a significantly lower or higher than 50% amount of these spells, enough to influence the outcome on a large scale is extremely unlikely due to the high amount of rolls involved. If anything, not rolling a very rare summon (or whichever tier decides the game) has a much higher impact and chance of happening.
I suppose it's a problem if the human player is using strategic combat, but...I can't do much about that. Nothing in the game is designed for that purpose, so it breaks the game even if basic units such as magicians or bowmen are involved. Or maybe I should say, doing that is not recommended and I take no responsibility for your game experience if played that way.

[Nelphine]

My problem with the strategic combat aspect is that death is already the weakest realm in strategic combat by a significant amount. Berserk, even if the AI can't use it at all vs the human, is actually an advantage for death in strategic combat. Taking that away will make death lose even more often against other AI wizards, nodes, lairs, etc, which does affect you.

I've already explained why I think movement is bad in the chaos thread. Heroes are by far the biggest culprit. But you can't give heroes 0 defense and have anything like the same power. This actually wouldn't be overpowered by heroes.

As for bezerking ranged units for the movement, that's fine. The AI can't do that. But in most battles the human cares about, the AI CAN use that movement boost on melee to good affect, because its on defense. The same spell, same affect, useable by human and AI in different ways. Admittedly, +4 might be too weak. Maybe give it +2 movement and double attack, and prevent defense buffs.

[Seravy]

My problem with the strategic combat aspect is that death is already the weakest realm in strategic combat by a significant amount.

I wouldn't be sure about that. It's the only realm that gets units raised in it for free. But if testing shows they are (will need months to gather enough game data), we can deal with that problem by increasing the casting multipliers for the realm. Considering what other realms miss out on (Life = healing, prayer, Chaos = nukes, Sorcery = phantoms, confusion etc) I can't really say it hurts Death more than others, even though Death probably has the most combat spells.

[Nelphine]

They have no unit buffs. So their city troops are always weakest. Aside from ghouls (and possibly improved wraiths, but I suspect top end ranged units like warlocks and high men magicians with focus magic or holy weapon are better) their summons are weaker than city units available around the same time. (Werewolves only start to beat halberdiers with buffs from other realms, if the halberdier is elite.)

The battles they do win they get lots of raised dead from. Which means their army strength looks high. But that doesn't help an individual important strategic combat, which is where they are weakest.

[Seravy]

The battles they do win they get lots of raised dead from. Which means their army strength looks high. But that doesn't help an individual important strategic combat, which is where they are weakest.

I believe we should care about the overall performance (which wizard develops into a threat or gets eliminated) and not individual battles. If the larger amount of units is enough to let the wizard stay in game or get ahead, it's good. If not, then it's not good but the solution to that is not a single spell, the solution is to adjust the casting power of Death books in strategic combat - that is how strategic combat simulates magic power afterall.

One thing I should say. It doesn't matter what spells the AI has. What matter is, what they spend their casting skill on.
Yes  life wizard has a ton of buffs, but no creatures. Buffs might get them stronger stacks but the power to spent skill ratio is worse than summons. Same deal for Sorcery. A single Naga is several times more power than a Focus Magic on anything. Nature's creatures are so strong, buffs can't even compare. Chaos...well, a hell hound has the attack power of about 3 flame blades for less MP. Add in the fact that the AI is casting more summons than buffs and the end result is, buffs have a marginal influence.
If you're really so worried about it, we can set the chance to cast the spell low, and then the skill will be invested into something more relevant (werewolves, shadow demons, ghouls, etc) but I want to keep the cost low so I don't think this really matters. Overall, since it's in the "buff" group, the AI will cast this instead of Cloak of Fear, Wraith Form, and...Lycanthropy. The first did nothing to begin with. The second too, except for the improved movement on settlers but it'll be still used on those, it's not like the AI will never cast the spell (and it's uncommon anyway so this effect comes way after that). So the only thing that could have any impact is sligltly less werewolves...which the AI barely produces to begin with as far as I can tell. Werewolves have a priority of 25 btw, and this will probably be like, 10 or less.

[Nelphine]

My problem with strategic combat comes from the loss of bexerk, to be replaced by a unit buff that does not do anything in strategic combat.

And overall strength doesn't matter, if your fortress is weaker than an enemy who has a single high strength stack. Fortress us a higher priority target, if an AI sees they can take a fortress, they will. Which results in death being weaker where it matters.

Also, buffs win strategic combat. Because they take the max from 9 units, and increase it. A 10th naga is infinitely worse than focus magic on one of the existing 9 units.

Similarly, focus magic on draconian swordsmen is a bigger buff to the offensive power of the stack than a new naga unit, even if they have less than 9 units. If you're replacing the swordsman with the naga, its not even remotely comparable.

[Nelphine]

(Actually in general focus msgoc is the best thing you can possibly do for strategic combat before rare summons. And on the right unit, its actually comparable to very rare summons. For strategic combat focus magic is.. Overpowered. So much it singlehandedly makes up for sorcery being generally bad in strategic combat after nagas.)

[Seravy]

Okay a question.
What makes you think casting Berserk on a unit helps the AI in strategic combat.

It will double the attack rating of the unit (or less if it also has thrown/breath), but halve (or worse) the defense rating. Which isn't exactly helping if the enemy army contains a lot of ranged, having those berserk units mean they lose more health in the ranged phase, in worst case they might not even make through it because of the halved "defensive rating".

Any unit with 4 or higher armor hit by the Berserk is probably not helping the AI.

Anyway, I already said twice and this is the last time :
If we want Death to be stronger in strategic combat, we should increase the multiplier of the effect of mana spent during it.

A single spell is not going to fix this problem.
But first, we need a lot of statistical data to prove the realm is underperforming on the whole and needs this change.

By the way I think you should be worrying about Sorcery instead. They have no uncommon creatures and only one buff that affects stats in the entire realm. They are far worse in strategic combat.

[Nelphine]

That one buff, as I said, is better than the vast majority of summons in the game during strategic combat.

However we are getting far off base and I'm sorry for that. I had suggested modifications to strategic combat before, and you rightly told me that is a huge can of worms. Yes we can modify the realm modifiers, but that isn't a trivial task.

I think telling me to just shut up and not worry about it is probably a better idea.


So. Getting back to the point. Blood lust, bezerk with movement speed.

Ignoring my strategic comments I like blood lust. I also like the speed on bezerk. I'll leave it to you.

[Seravy]

That one buff, as I said, is better than the vast majority of summons in the game during strategic combat.

However we are getting far off base and I'm sorry for that. I had suggested modifications to strategic combat before, and you rightly told me that is a huge can of worms. Yes we can modify the realm modifiers, but that isn't a trivial task.

I think telling me to just shut up and not worry about it is probably a better idea.


So. Getting back to the point. Blood lust, bezerk with movement speed.

Ignoring my strategic comments I like blood lust. I also like the speed on bezerk. I'll leave it to you.

Then Blood Lust it is. Movement speed is another can of worms I prefer not to mess with unless necessary... Wraiths and Death Knights reaching enemy on turn one is not funny, I should have realized that sooner.

Meanwhile I was working on raise dead, made it raise the unit as fantastic without a realm but it cannot be healed like Death units. Which made me fix the inconsistency on healing Death units along with it. From now on, Death units can be targeted by both Healing and Healing Charge instead of only the latter. Undead cannot be targeted by either instead of only the latter.

Not sure if I should exclude skeletons and zombies like they are excluded from natural healing? Probably yes?