Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Domon]

I'd argue too strong - 8 figure high men magicians would be... Impressive

what about 6 figures adamant orihalcon troll magicians with invulnerability, focus magic, spell lock, lionhearth, invisibility? yeah, it's just brainstorming. but maybe a retort to buff specific units can work?

It's also very race limited (since many races don't get wizards towers at all). I'd rather not see retorts that can't be used by anyone

well, it still adds figures to shamans and priests. besides, sage master is pretty useless with 4 books of a single color, too. and inuquisitor with barbarians? i agree this is too narrow, but somewhat-narrow retorts could be ok.

(which is actually one reason things like specialist and cult leader evolved into the current form.)

oh, i thought it was to free space for new retorts. either way, it was a good idea.

[Nelphine]

I've done inquisitor with barbarians (though I'm not a big fan if barbarians, inquisitor doesn't hurt it much since you're already making a plan out if early units) I actually love sagemaster on 4 books from a single realm (its the fastest way to get a very rare, which can be huge)

[Tlaloc]

AI item cost : 1/2 of the player's cost - Kyrub's change, AI was not allowed to buy items prior to insecticide
AI hero chance : +10 after cap

Those seem like big hero advantages for the AI which could swing the game if the AI were better at handling heroes. Perhaps those numbers could be dependent on difficulty level?

[GermanJoey]

Sorry, I didn't know you changed the chances of hiring mercenaries prior to version 0.1. Famous makes good sense then.

GermanJoey, your PeasantMaster, while creative with its restriction of no heroes, has a poor benefit. I wouldn't play it.

Well that's the whole idea. Heroes are too powerful and warp the game, so here's a mode that would let you play without it.

[zitro1987]

Sorry, I didn't know you changed the chances of hiring mercenaries prior to version 0.1. Famous makes good sense then.

GermanJoey, your PeasantMaster, while creative with its restriction of no heroes, has a poor benefit. I wouldn't play it.

Well that's the whole idea. Heroes are too powerful and warp the game, so here's a mode that would let you play without it.

Then the benefit needs to be comparable to 2-pick retorts, as this retort includes a big weakness (no heroes). With a name like PeasantMaster, I'd figure the theme is food, large civilian (cheap) armies, gold? settlers?

idea1 Normal units cost 20 less gold (minimum 1). +1 food/10pop growth to city if garrison, per 2 units. (military units are farmers, stationed units help city, cheaper units with best cost reduction) - 20 cost cavalry, 40 cost halberdiers, garrison having a 'farmers market' effect minus the max pop.

idea2 *Weaker/no food garrison bonus but with normal unit food/gold upkeep reduction or much cheaper settlers

idea3 *All cities provide +1 food per farmer, and +1 production per worker (cities are super productive)

But given the user is already satisfied with the 3.21 version retorts, it may not be much other than wishful thinking. My least favorite retorts are 'Inquisitor' because of the lack of variety/balance issues and 'Mana Focusing' because a generic power boost is somewhat redundant.

[Seravy]

magic professor

building magicians' guld costs 75% and gives double research; magicians, priests, shamans and warlocks units have +2 figures

very narrow, possibly fun, could use some drawback

Figures are a constant, I don't think it would work well if at all - in the best case the extra figures disappear outside of combat.

Those seem like big hero advantages for the AI which could swing the game if the AI were better at handling heroes. Perhaps those numbers could be dependent on difficulty level?

No, I think these numbers are fine. Heroes are useless without equipment and levels, and those come out of the other advantages the AI gets based on difficulty levels. This merely ensures the AI gets the hero early enough to use the items they find. The buying cost discount is questionable but now that the AI is better at spending gold, they would probably never have enough unused gold to buy the better items at full price. - the other problem is they buy at random so there is no guarantee the item is actually useful for them.
...looking at the code again, the AI needs to have the full price of the item, but only spends half of it. So those top tier items are probably out of reach for lower difficulty AI - they won't have that much unused gold piled up. I should actually pay attention to how much gold the current AI has on reserve in average to see if they leave enough  for items - though it's questionable if they should or not because items are still not that good for the AI as buying units or buildings (the human player can take them away by killing the heroes) - but sometimes a good item can decide a game if the player fails to deal with it.

I don't want a "No heroes" retort - finding that if you play a hero build, or finding a hero retort (famous, tactician, artificier) when you play the "no hero" retort is bad. It's probably even less fun to play than inquisitor, any item you find, you are unable to use and have to destroy for mana.

my least favorite retorts are inquisitor (Maybe I'm playing it wrong but it really feels a huge disadvantage on larger landmass and longer games so it's kinda a "fast game only" retort), and artificier (would never pick it unless I'm specifically playing an artifact based strategy) but they make the game richer by effectively turning the game into something completely different when picked so they shouldn't get replaced.

[GermanJoey]

Couldn't you block it from appearing as a lair reward, like you already do with Inquisitor? Finding a "hero retort" with this "no hero" retort is fine though, as the 3 you mentioned do other things that aren't specifically about heroes.

At any rate, the whole idea of this new retort would be to change the game into something completely different when it is picked...

[Seravy]

Heroes are not a guaranteed thing in the game, so a retort that considers "no heroes" a drawback is flawed as it's not always a drawback.
By not guaranteed I mean you don't always plan for "and I'll have heroes". Many wizards don't rely on heroes and getting them is merely a nice (or useless, depending on the situation) extra. Getting a benefit worth 1 additional pick for giving up something I didn't need in the first place is an obvious choice I have a 100% chance of making - unless said retort is not actually powerful enough to be worth it in which case wizards who are good at using heroes will never ever pick it.

In a less roundabout way : I would never ever pick such a retort with a Life or Sorcery wizard - heroes are too useful for them. I would always pick it with a Death or Chaos wizard (assuming the effect is worth picking - an extra settler and 25 gold is not, even for 1 pick and no drawback) as they have no way to keep heroes alive so they're only marginally useful. In case of multi-realm I would not pick it if I have at least two of Life, Chaos or Sorcery realms (chaos for soul linker+chaos channels chance) or at least 4-5 Life books (resurrection and incarnation are wasted spell slots if you don't get heroes).

Since there is no real decision involved if you know the game, you either must pick the retort or must not pick it, I don't like that. Most other retorts are optional - it's not an obvious case of "always pick for this, never for that". Even Cult Leader and Artificier have some decision involved - you don't pick artificier if not playing a hero strategy but you can play a hero strategy with or without artificier, and any realm (yes you need to have at least some books in the realms that support heroes best, but you can mix it with death or chaos for those item powers.). Same for Cult Leader - you don't pick it with a race that has no religious buildings, but you can play without it even if you play races that have all of them.

(which raises the question btw - does the AI need any restriction on Cult Leader races? Or can we just assume they'll conquer another race that has the buildings and spread those anyway? I don't think any non-religion races are ranked too high on settler production so probably fine to have no restriction?)

On the technical part of things, I'm not sure if I can block the player from casting Summon Hero/Summon Champion/Incarnation anyway.

[Nelphine]

To be fair, I'd always pick it, on any game, because I dislike heroes that much. The casting skill alone from sitting them in the capital is HUGE (Up to ~1414, I can get easily 30% of my overland casting skill from heroes). My standard game is pure life, and I'd pick that in a heartbeat. My sorcery games.. I would pick that.

As a note, I wouldn't bother preventing them from casting the spells. You are right the benefit isn't so great - forcing people to use valuable casting skill on heroes might actually be balanced for what you get.

[Catwalk]

Given that another retort has to be torn up to create a no-hero retort, I'm not a fan. I think that style is better suited for user made challenges, like they do on the Orion subforum.