Experimental version

[Tlaloc]

The new version is ready, but as it contains two major changes that we might or might not like in the end, I decided to release it as an experimental version first.

The download is the usual location, but the filename is "CasterEXP.zip" instead of a version number.

If we are satisfied with the results, this will be the next "official" release, if not, I can remove whichever features we didn't like. The features I consider "experimental" are the new spell system, spell treasure roll, and the new Sprites unit.

-Easy difficulty AI is no longer allowed to buy production for gold - this should reduce losing units to maintenance costs somewhat. (Easy AI has no maintenance discount and income bonus)
-All units regain their movement allowance before the AI turns start as well as before the human's turn. This should fix all issues with the AI not being able to move stacks the human player attacked - particularly, if the AI fled the battle, as the problem was fixed for other cases a long time ago.
-Added some additional conditions for AI priorities on economic buildings especially when the AI is low on gold. This should improve performance of low difficulty levels a little.
-Fixed bug : When AEther Sparks reduces ammo from 1 to 0, the ranged attack is not removed.
-When spells are awarded in treasure, the spell given will always be the exact same rarity as intended - if such a spell is not possible to find, no spell of other rarity is replacing it.
-When spells are awarded in treasure, spells that cannot be researched by the wizard are preferred. If everything can be researched, spells not in the current research candidates are preferred. The spell currently being researched is never chosen unless nothing else is available.
-Changed spell amounts per spellbook, starting spell amount per spellbook, and added Guaranteed Uncommon and Rare spells. This is an experimental feature subject to further change. Guaranteed Uncommon spells are automatically upgraded into guaranteed to appear on turn 1 if book counts exceed 7.
C/U/R/VR , C Starting/ U Guaranteed/ U Guaranteed turn 1 research/ R Guaranteed, other effects
Book 01 : 3/1/0/0, 0/0/0/0, Find/Trade common
Book 02 : 3/2/1/0, 1/0/0/0, Find/Trade Uncommon
Book 03 : 4/3/2/1, 2/0/0/0, Find/Trade Rare
Book 04 : 5/4/3/2, 3/0/0/0, Find/Trade Very Rare
Book 05 : 6/5/4/3, 4/1/0/0,
Book 06 : 7/6/5/4, 5/1/0/1,
Book 07 : 10/7/6/5, 5/2/0/1,
Book 08 : 10/10/7/6, 5/0/2/1,
Book 09 : 10/10/10/7, 5/0/2/0, +8% research, -5% casting cost
Book 10 : 10/10/10/10, 5/0/2/0, +16% research, -10% casting cost
Books  found in treasure follow this same pattern but have an exception : Book 2 contains 2 extra commons.
-The AI will prioritize the research of Aura of Majesty, Stream of Life, and Astral Gate before other spells.
-Sprites now has 2 ranged, 2 shields, 2 hit points, lucky, and a new ability : Fairy Dust Attack. This is an experimental feature subject to further change. Ranged attacks performed by the unit hit the target with a “Fairy Dust” spell that has strength equal to the attacking figures+2.
-Raised the amount of monsters in Towers by an additional +500 points, it is now 2000-4400 points.

Please report any bugs as usual, and let me know if you like the changes or not!

Very nice flexible spell system. I like it. I'm not sure this particular distribution will solve the problem of people mostly taking books only for guaranteed commons, but as you said the distribution can be easily tweaked in response to player testing and feedback.

[Seravy]

I think there is a pretty big mistake when thinking "lower books with more retorts is good".

Retorts don't just compete with books 7-10. They also compete with books 1-4 in a second realm.
And adding 2-4 books in another realm can work as well or better than adding 2-4 points of retorts. It yields additional starting spells, improves diplomacy in many cases, and thanks to trades, yields a lot more spells than other books would do - albeit limited at whichever rarity the amount of books allow.

Leaving obviously overpowered retort combinations aside, I'd say adding 2, 3, or 4 books in another realm is usually worth more than adding 2-4 points of retorts - retorts only win if there is some significant interaction between them that boosts their effects.

You ask how I win with 2 uncommon and 1 rare. I don't. I win with 3 commons.

Eww. That sounds really wrong, I hope it's not true. The vast majority of common spells in the game should not be able to win games.

I think for a healthier testing of balance, cheating should be reduced, so that you can then address the difference between spellbooks and retorts by making more strategies viable (even if some, the current strong ones, will start out by destroying AI when cheating is reduced.)

Well yeah, I have been working hard on playing test games to adjust AI bonuses...but that assumes the base system remains unchanged. Since we are changing it, progress here goes back to square one again. (The AI learned a lot of new things meanwhile, anyway)

Given that AI do not have the ability to be retort heavy, you could increase how many spellbooks are needed for starting commons, and simply put slightly higher minimums on AI spellbooks in one realm.

That doesn't work. Let's say there is a minor increase of 2 more books needed. That puts the 4-6 books dual realm templates at 6-8 books each. That's 1. No longer a dual realm wizard, at 8 books that's the same as a mono which is 7-10, and 2. It means 66% of AI wizards will have zero retorts, period. Out of 12 picks, if 6+6 is the minimal amount, the AI will have 0 left for retorts. (and ofc it also means no extra books either)

Anyway, time to start playing a game.

[Tlaloc]

You ask how I win with 2 uncommon and 1 rare. I don't. I win with 3 commons.

Eww. That sounds really wrong, I hope it's not true. The vast majority of common spells in the game should not be able to win games.

The basic problem is that the 3 Life commons Heroism, Endurance, Holy Armor are too strong in combination. The synergy between them should probably be nerfed somehow.

[Seravy]

One more thought.

Let's assume 7 books are better then 10 since that's what you claim. Why is that a problem? Going 10 books is a no-brainer decision that limits the possible other choices greatly (only 2 picks left for additional realms and retorts), and is what the default wizards are set up to have so players start learning the game by using that. 10 book wizards should be average or slightly better, but should not in any way be the best.
It makes sense that custom wizards designed by an experienced player are better, that's what games are about - better players win more. And 7 books is a much better spot for that - there are at least 100 times more ways to spend the remaining 5 picks on secondary books and retorts, than the ways you can spend the extra 2 after 10 books. More choices -> higher level of playing -> higher benefits.
(I'd say the number of books depend on the strategy though. 7 is best for "retort stacking" only. In all other cases, the number depends on the strategy itself. And we want to get rid of "retort stacking" as an impossible level strategy, I believe. There are only a few retorts that stack this way, fixing those should be enough.)

The basic problem is that the 3 Life commons Heroism, Endurance, Holy Armor are too strong in combination. The synergy between them should probably be nerfed somehow.

That might be true but has nothing to do with this topic. Heroism is already on the "watch list". Life doesn't get anything else for the early game though so we should be careful about changing that.
Anyway, we can worry about specific spells and retorts after we have decided on the system.

[zitro1987]

Sadly, commons do win the game at times, because certain common combinations/synergies are simply too good and give too strong of an early advantage, so much that it translates to deciding whether you will win.

Extreme early advantage -> you win the game

[Tlaloc]

The basic problem is that the 3 Life commons Heroism, Endurance, Holy Armor are too strong in combination. The synergy between them should probably be nerfed somehow.

That might be true but has nothing to do with this topic. Heroism is already on the "watch list". Life doesn't get anything else for the early game though so we should be careful about changing that.
Anyway, we can worry about specific spells and retorts after we have decided on the system.

Right. I just didn't want you to make any hasty changes to the spell system when it's really an issue with the synergy between those 3 spells.

[Nelphine]

And to be specific I only want to change starting commons. I want starting commons to come every two books instead of every book. AI have lots of books, they'll still get the required ones. 4-6 will still be a valid dual realm, it just don't have as many starting commons. Same with triple. I don't want to change anything else - everything else is the strength of large numbers of spellbooks. But STARTING commons link directly into retorts, since you also start with them.

Low numbers of books give you the same STARTING power as high numbers of books. Retorts act immediately at the start. Therefore, low numbers of books are JUST as good as high number of books, when using a retort based strategy. Thus, starting commons needs to be reduced.

[Nelphine]

As a note, I don't use heroes with my life (except for overland casting) Heroism isn't on my list - its 6th for life spells (although if I feel like gambling on getting an early ritual caster, I might take it, but not as one of my winning spells.)

Basically heroes are their own complete problem, and heroism is part of that; heroism isnt part of life in general in terms of strength. (Even if heroes are best under life, life doesn't remotely require heroes.)

[Seravy]

I want starting commons to come every two books instead of every book.

You said "3 commons win the game". You can still get 3 commons with 6 books even if I do that, so this improves nothing, at the cost of making the AI a lot worse.

[Nelphine]

How does it make the AI worse? That's what I'm trying to get across. What AI is actually worse off with less than 3 starting commons (usually 4). And yes, you can still get 3 with 6 books. But you force me to take 2 more books. That's 2 less retorts. That's huge. 3 commons wins the game because I can stack 6 retorts onto them.

Note the assumption is that the AI can split their starting commons as they split their guaranteed uncommons and base then on other realms. If you can't do that then yes its much worse on AI.