Game mechanics

[Seravy]

4 power vs 24 power ain't nothing, that's like 3 free Amplifying Towers.

Nope, it's 2 Wizard's Guilds. Skill is not affected at all, it's only power.

what do you think about a system where building destruction upon conquering a city follows this set of rules:

Doubt I can do this and I would get angry if I had a 100% chance to lose all of those every time a single phantom warrior decides to cross my walls and enter the city. (building destruction is triggered by units entering the city as well as the attacker winning)


I thought about it and more expensive unit "buy" costs will probably do the trick anyway. You typically need at least a few good units, and while you do earn ~200-300 gold after conquest, if you want to buy a magician for example, it would be 480g at 4x cost, or 600 at 5x cost for each one. That's a lot of money and you most likely need at least 3 of those to have a chance of protecting the city.

[Catwalk]

If you're interested, I just noticed that kyrub managed to code a feature in Catnip that prevents the player from switching production item after purchasing. That would prevent ladder purchase abuse and re-enable variable rush cost.

[Seravy]

If you're interested, I just noticed that kyrub managed to code a feature in Catnip that prevents the player from switching production item after purchasing. That would prevent ladder purchase abuse and re-enable variable rush cost.

I like being able to switch, though. Sometimes you just buy the wrong thing and need to swap to another, like you discover an enemy stack nearby after you already bought a building.
I guess it's unavoidable, if we want the "more expensive units", I'm going to need to add that, otherwise you can buy buildings and switch to units afterwards.
...except, there is still a way to work around that restriction.  Buy a building, the most expensive one. Sell the prerequisite. It cancels the production. Then you can change to something else, with all the production still unused, either that turn or the next one. Does that patch also deal with this problem? If not, I have to disable it separately.
(also, I don't know where Kyrub stored the "cannot change" information. If it's a byte I'm using for something already, we are out of luck. I can only tell after I saw the patch.)

[GermanJoey]

If you're interested, I just noticed that kyrub managed to code a feature in Catnip that prevents the player from switching production item after purchasing. That would prevent ladder purchase abuse and re-enable variable rush cost.

I don't know why you want to limit rush buying. It's a hugely beneficial change to the game's pace. CoM is so different than MoM, try playing it a little more before suggesting changes.

[Nelphine]

As seravy mentioned, its specifically because the human can capture a city, buy a unit and refill the death stack, and then keep going, whereas, the AI has to slow down every time they conquer a city.

[Nelphine]

Also, I say 4 vs 24 is nothing because you can get that much power from a single node, or 2 cities with cathedrals, or 2 wizards guilds. Even 20-40 population can do it. All of these things are easily attainable in early mid game, and while it will certainly make a difference, its not nearly enough of a difference to make me interested in wanting more books. I'll still take them (or not) based on the spells they offer. Taking mana focusing would be far more more power than taking 8 extra books. (And mama focusing is far worse than almost any other retort for my play style so I wouldn't even do that.)

[Seravy]

As seravy mentioned, its specifically because the human can capture a city, buy a unit and refill the death stack, and then keep going, whereas, the AI has to slow down every time they conquer a city.

That, and one more thing. The human player can focus their money into buying units where it's needed - a weakened garrison, that adamant city where you make your paladins or slingers, etc...you can literally conjure up a real army in just a dozen turns out of nothing, as long as you have a lot of gold. The AI cannot do this, they cannot even realize the concept of needing troops at a specific location - or at all. Even with their 200% gold, spending it evenly on random stuff makes it way less effective than what the human can get for it if they spend it on effective military units. Unlike buildings which are just more or less economic choices that improve your production or income over time, the right military units win the game, and do so fast. Every X unit you buy means you can take away a city from the AI in a few turns (they have to reach the target, but that's it, and you can buy them close to the destination often enough) or protect your own, so their return of investment is way better -you get whole cities with many buildings and people instead of just a few buildings in them.

Like, let's say you have two choices :
1. Buy a Miner's Guild, Builder's Hall, University and Mechanician's Guild to produce Paladins faster. You get about 50% more Paladins per turn.
2. Buy Paladins directly.

Let's assume you need 4 Paladins to conquer the nearby AI city.
The buildings will cost you 530 production and 4 turns to complete. Assuming you normally get 1 paladin every 3 turns with them you get one in two turns.
So if you buy paladins, you can have 2 of them for gold in 2 turns and another 4 turns for the other two. In 6 turns plus the one more to cover the distance, you earned a city...giving you buildings worth far more than your initial investment.
If you buy the buildings, at the time you already gained a city from the other option, you still only have the second paladin. Not only are you 2 Paladins behind, you also do not have an extra city, so at this point the other option is already superior. While you have +50% production, in the other case you have an entire city which is producing you money, power, production, and might possibly have the buildings you spent on, and 2 extra Paladins to spare. It's obvious that buying units is always the better deal as long as those units can be used for any kind of conquest. The same is true if they are used for defense though : keeping your city without +50% production is always better than building them but losing it to an invasion.
Ultimately, as long as the player can judge when and which units are worth buying and there is an enemy, it's always a superior option to buildings. Often even if they're just sent to clear nodes : a node gets you more power per turn than a wizard's guild and the item/gold/mana loot will usually pay for the entire army used.
It certainly takes a good player to be able to judge when the bought units will be winning you battles or not, but once you are at level, you will spend much more on units than anything else, unless your "military" is summons in which case you probably spend on amplifiers, wizard's guilds and other power producing stuff instead. (who am I kidding, no, you buy units that can clear nodes because those yield even more power. You only buy amplifying towers and wizard's guilds for the magicians that get you those nodes.)

[Seravy]

.For the starting power, for simplicity's sake, how about 1.5 power/book for the first 8 and 3/book from 9+?
I don't think it really matters if 6 books gets 6 or 7 power or 4 gets 4 or 6. (if anything, the higher amount is still way to low to cast any relevant spells in the early game)
Due to rounding, this generates the same result for 1 or 7 books as if it was 1 for the first 4 and 2 for the next 4., only 2-6 are affected by a difference of 1 or 2.

[zitro1987]

.For the starting power, for simplicity's sake, how about 1.5 power/book for the first 8 and 3/book from 9+?
I don't think it really matters if 6 books gets 6 or 7 power or 4 gets 4 or 6. (if anything, the higher amount is still way to low to cast any relevant spells in the early game)
Due to rounding, this generates the same result for 1 or 7 books as if it was 1 for the first 4 and 2 for the next 4., only 2-6 are affected by a difference of 1 or 2.

That seems fine as well and may be the most balanced (and simplest) approach

[Catwalk]

If you're interested, I just noticed that kyrub managed to code a feature in Catnip that prevents the player from switching production item after purchasing. That would prevent ladder purchase abuse and re-enable variable rush cost.

I don't know why you want to limit rush buying. It's a hugely beneficial change to the game's pace. CoM is so different than MoM, try playing it a little more before suggesting changes.

I have played with it quite a bit now, and I must say that it's not my cup of tea. It's fun to try out overpowered combos and stomp around, but that's not what I'm looking for. It looks like our priorities in what makes a good strategy experience are very different. I do wish you all good luck with the mod, I'll bow out of discussions now.