Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Seravy]

Does anyone else find it odd that maximum sized cities can be worse than slightly less populated cities? Specifically, once unrest starts to accumulate past your ability to handle, each unit of population is a drain on your empire. This means, for instance, if there are 3 more population than you can handle, its economically beneficial to scrap a building like a farmers market, so that you don't have to pay its upkeep.

I don't understand.
Unrest is a percentage - the city growing by X population will yield both normal people and rebels in the same ratio. The ratio is usually below 50% - even the highest tax rate is only 55%. Only racial unrest can raise it any higher than that but even then it won't reach 100%.


Scrapping a farmer's market won't reduce your population by 3 - you'll need to still pay for the rebel's food through farmers instead which is worse. Not building it before the city grows to that size is the only option.
Also, even if you manage to shrink your city by, let's say 4, assuming you had 4 rebels and an unrest ratio of 50%, you will still have 2 rebels remaining but also lose 2 productive citizens.

[Nelphine]

Yeah i wasn't paying any attention. You are absolutely correct.

I still hate that growing your population past a certain point is economically unhelpful.

22 population, 55% unrest. 12.1 rebels (assuming this rounds down to 12). 8 units, shrine, cathedral, coliseum, lizardman. 4 rebels, 18 productive citizens.

Drop farmers market before growing past 19 population - 19 population, 10.45 rebels (does this round up or down? lets assume down); 2 rebel, 17 productive citizens. You lose 2.5 gold income, but have 3 less gold maintenance. You also lose the production of 1 citizen, but if that citizen was a farmer, at that population, it was only worth 1 food at most.

Ok it's not really a gain to scrap the farmers market, but it still seems odd that your citizens near maximum population are so unhelpful as to not really be a loss either.

[Seravy]

Yeah i wasn't paying any attention. You are absolutely correct.

I still hate that growing your population past a certain point is economically unhelpful.

22 population, 55% unrest. 12.1 rebels (assuming this rounds down to 12). 8 units, shrine, cathedral, coliseum, lizardman.  4 rebels, 18 productive citizens.

Drop farmers market before growing past 19 population - 19 population, 10.45 rebels (does this round up or down? lets assume down); 2 rebel, 17 productive citizens. You lose 2.5 gold income, but have 3 less gold maintenance.  You also lose the production of 1 citizen, but if that citizen was a farmer, at that population, it was only worth 1 food at most.

Ok it's not really a gain to scrap the farmers market, but it still seems odd that your citizens near maximum population are so unhelpful as to not really be a loss either.

Or you can play a different race, build an Oracle and not have this problem. Or use 2.25 gold taxes if all your cities have a large enough number of rebels - maximal taxes might not be worth it if all your large cities have 5+ rebels in them.
...but Lizardmen have 45% rebels anyway. Their racial benefit. So you have 2 fewer rebels.
You also have the option of using Just Cause, using Cult Leader, or Gaia's Blessing/Stream of Life. There would be no point to unrest reduction spells and abilities if you could always have zero unrest without them.

[Nelphine]

No I understand why unrest is helpful. I just don't like that a city growing is not helpful. I wish there was a way to give a definitive impact for having bigger cities, all the time, even if it's much worse when the extra population is a rebel.

I guess what I really want is to be able to look at population of an empire overall and get some knowledge from that - but since rebels are just bad, that means that a smaller population might actually be just as effective - or even more effective depending on what unrest control is available.

[Seravy]

No I understand why unrest is helpful.  I just don't like that a city growing is not helpful.  I wish there was a way to give a definitive impact for having bigger cities, all the time, even if it's much worse when the extra population is a rebel.

One benefit I can think of right now - if the city is hit by a population reducing effect, it'll be still good, while if it didn't have the extra people it would be ruined.
Enemy units entering the city, a magic vortex cast on it, that sort of stuff.

[Nelphine]

I suppose thats true. Sacrifice your cantankerous citizens in WAAAAR!

[Seravy]

Latest experimental version is up, see http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...722&page=9

[Nelphine]

Strategic combat question:

I don't know the EXACT strength of the units involved, but AI takes out a city - they have 9 units. (Obviously have to be fairly strong to take out the city, and none of them died in the combat; I don't know how hurt they were though.) Then they get counterattacked by the other AI. However, the other AI is banished.

But since all the people in this game have 300+ casting skill, I was very surprised. Given one is banished, I would have thought the HUGE difference in casting skill would mean the defender, even with hurt units, would basically win strategic combat automatically.

So my question: If a wizard is banished, does his casting skill still work in strategic combat? (And if it does, should it? It doesn't work in normal combat.)

[Seravy]

So my question: If a wizard is banished, does his casting skill still work in strategic combat? (And if it does, should it? It doesn't work in normal combat.)

It doesn't. However if the other wizard wasn't high enough on mana, they might have decided not to use any.
A more likely scenario is that their stack was too damaged, and/or the enemy stack had very high strategic power. Damage distribution spreads out damage - it's possible to have all units survive and still be on 1/3 of the original strategic power due to all units being down to 1/3 health.

[Nelphine]

Thanks.

Next question:

General question regarding late game. My opponent just cast 4 earthquakes, 4 change terrains, summoned 2 stone giants, summoned a great lizard, cast transmute, cast blizzard, and cast at least 2 more spells (based on the time elapsed when nothing seemed to happen between spells, so probably casting unit enchantments).

I just feel like this gets excessive. Is this kind of absolute mass spellcasting really want we want late game? Yes they can't focus on things, but when they cast that many spells.. if there are 2 or 3 of them doing so, the entire landscape can change between one turn and the next, which seems more than is desired. Strategy shouldn't completely change every turn (I think).

Especially since this is in 1417, after a fairly brutal war (my opponents overall strength on the History of Wizards Power graph has gone down 25%), which by your own admission isn't even meant to be the end game yet (that shouldn't come until 1420+).