Abolish the distinction between Arcanus and Myrran races

[Nelphine]

However, as seravy pointed out, if opponents were based on difficulty, then myrran on impossible is worth less than 1 retort (as I mentioned a few posts back), since the majority if it's value currently comes from starting with less opponents on your home plane. And even race wouldn't be worth half a pick st that point since 3 of your opponents also get the better races.

[Seravy]

However, as seravy pointed out, if opponents were based on difficulty, then myrran on impossible is worth less than 1 retort (as I mentioned a few posts back), since the majority if it's value currently comes from starting with less opponents on your home plane. And even race wouldn't be worth half a pick st that point since 3 of your opponents also get the better races.

In addition to all the previously mentioned reasons, I also think it would be a disproportionate benefit for certain realms over others.
A Life wizard can push troops onto the Arcanus plane early and with only one wizard there, grab a massive amount of land - as their race is superior, a single Arcanus wizard is unlikely to be able to stop that, resulting in a game where the Life wizard controls most of Arcanus and has 1/4 of Myrror, while the other Myrrans each have only 1/4 of Myrror and nothing on Arcanus. This scenario is very beneficial and easy to win for the Life wizard, and not good at all for any others.

If it's the reverse, the life wizard starting on Arcanus, it's not working like this - the Myrran wizard has more effective troops and accelerated early expansion so the Life wizard can't grab most of Myrror even if they have access.

[Catwalk]

Its not luck. You get 2 myrror when the Hunan chooses myrran, and 1 if the human doesn't. (And there might be a tiny chance of a third myrran opponent if the human is myrran.?)

Nice, I didn't know that. Can you quickly list all factors that determine where AI wizards are placed? I don't have the full overview, I realize.

However, as seravy pointed out, if opponents were based on difficulty, then myrran on impossible is worth less than 1 retort (as I mentioned a few posts back), since the majority if it's value currently comes from starting with less opponents on your home plane. And even race wouldn't be worth half a pick st that point since 3 of your opponents also get the better races.

I'd definitely pick Myrran at a cost of 1 pick if I know that I face 2 enemy wizards. I get better terrain specials and a better race. The human player gets a much bigger advantage from playing Troll than the AI does, for example. If you still consider that too weak, it's trivial to give Myrran a small side benefit (it used to have +5 power). That's not an argument for not making this change.

In addition to all the previously mentioned reasons, I also think it would be a disproportionate benefit for certain realms over others.
A Life wizard can push troops onto the Arcanus plane early and with only one wizard there, grab a massive amount of land - as their race is superior, a single Arcanus wizard is unlikely to be able to stop that, resulting in a game where the Life wizard controls most of Arcanus and has 1/4 of Myrror, while the other Myrrans each have only 1/4 of Myrror and nothing on Arcanus. This scenario is very beneficial and easy to win for the Life wizard, and not good at all for any others.

If it's the reverse, the life wizard starting on Arcanus, it's not working like this - the Myrran wizard has more effective troops and accelerated early expansion so the Life wizard can't grab most of Myrror even if they have access.

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. Why are you referring to 1 wizard on Arcanus? Are you talking about 3-player games?

[Nelphine]

@seravy:
To be fair, if we did that, we'd give arcanus accelerated expansion in the same scenarios myrror currently has it - and a life wizard who goes after arcanus on impossible is liable to simply overextend and not have enough presence on myrror to hold 1/4.

And on impossible the AI would break the towers fast enough that the human wouldn't get a huge chunk anyway. Plus life AI could do the same trick the human does although it would be unlikely.

[Nelphine]

@catwalk:
Look at my previous post catwalk (3 before yours) where what seravy and i are discussing is opponents location being based on difficulty. Under that idea, on impossible, you'd always have 3 opponents on your plane, even if you pick myrror.

But my argument is that the myrror retort, when you face 2 myrran opponents is worth more than 2 picks; but if you face 3 myrran opponents its worth less than 1 pick.

And if you only faced 1 myrran opponent (instead of 3 arcanus) it would be worth 3-4 picks.

[Catwalk]

I rather like that idea (for Impossible only). It means that an end-game boss is spawned in each game, cool.

I still maintain that getting a superior race (what's up with dwarves having 1 MP?) + better terrain specials + better lairs/nodes (is this still the case?) is worth 1 pick. If it's too weak, balance it with a fixed starting bonus like it used to be. It's trivial to balance Myrran under this system.

[Domon]

"I expect this benefit to be much more obvious after the latest Myrran specific AI changes (more effective settler production for the early game), but it'll still only apply to extreme and above so for the rest of the levels, the big thing remains the race."

this reminds me: i think all these "AI smartness" features should start from normal or hard level, and in case be compensated with less bonuses. it's just more fun like that.

[Seravy]

Nice, I didn't know that. Can you quickly list all factors that determine where AI wizards are placed? I don't have the full overview, I realize.

Player on Arcanus and difficulty>=Hard and enemy wizards>=2 : At least 1 Myrran wizard.
Player on Myrror and difficulty>=Hard and enemy wizards>=2 : At least 2 Myrran wizards.
Difficulty>=Hard : At most 3 Myrran wizards.

Within the allowed amount, chance solely depends on the wizard(s) randomly picking the retort. If the quota is not met, every wizard is rerolled entirely, otherwise whichever was rolled is what you get. As there are 18 retorts and 5 realms to pick from and at least 8 picks are mandatory on books, this leaves only a small chance for having more Myrran wizards then required.

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. Why are you referring to 1 wizard on Arcanus? Are you talking about 3-player games?

I somehow thought you were suggesting 3 Myrran wizards but seems you did not. Maybe someone else did.
Two Myrran wizards are already required and I don't think the retort should cost 1 in this case - this distribution is still vastly more beneficial than the default on Arcanus and is worth the two picks.
(considering the massive improvement of Myrran AI, eliminating the "final boss" of the game, the Myrran wizard who grows alone unchecked, is definitely worth 2 picks by itself - only time will tell, but I expect these improvements to have a massive impact, on par with what happened when the AI was no longer stuck in towers and became able to actually invade Arcanus.)

The luck factor is, if you roll a 3rd Myrran wizard which is very rare, then the game is entirely different and unless you can break into Arcanus early, not worth 2 picks. I think this much is acceptable.

and a life wizard who goes after arcanus on impossible is liable to simply overextend and not have enough presence on myrror to hold 1/4.

With 3/4 to 4/4 of Arcanus already under their control settled by Myrran races, losing that 1/4 on Myrror doesn't matter.

[Seravy]

think all these "AI smartness" features should start from normal or hard level, and in case be compensated with less bonuses. it's just more fun like that.

Usually they do, but settler production on normal and hard is nowhere near fast enough for this strategy to be effective, at least I don't think it is. It greatly relies on having a high production bonus from the difficulty level.

better lairs/nodes (is this still the case?)

Myrror has fewer nodes but each are worth more power. Number of lairs is the same. I think monster budgets are somewhat higher, and treasure per monster ratio is also higher, you get 125% of the monster value in treasure instead of 100%. As most good treasure has a threshold of minimal points to appear, this extra 25% paired with larger monster budgets is significant as it often turns into higher quality instead of quantity.
Ores are roughly twice as frequent, and depending on the Mineral settings, can include ores not present on Arcanus.

[Catwalk]

Alright, then it seems that most of my wishlist is already filled. How about simply always having 2x Myrror AI and 2x Arcanus AI instead of letting it be up to chance? That's a huge luck factor that we can easily eliminate, and I don't see that anything is lost by doing so.

On a separate note from that, I do support Nelphine's suggestion that you're referring to above. I like the idea of having an end-game boss that you need to take on later. But my main suggestion is about having a fixed 2/2 distribution. Don't know which difficulty levels it should apply to, maybe Extreme but at least Impossible.