Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Nelphine]

OK thanks. All explained!

[MrBiscuits]

I have 3 cities. (One barbarian, one gnoll with sages guild/amplifying tower, one dark elf with university and library)

I have just cause as my only global.

Why do I have a minimum research of 89 research? (I do not have sagemaster. I do have specialist, and I am researching my specialized school.)

My power production is 761.

How do you have a power production of 761 with just 3 cities? Loads of nodes?

[Nelphine]

Yup. I believe in node centric games, let AI build cities up, then take entire contents away from them simultaneously.

[MrBiscuits]

Yup. I believe in node centric games, let AI build cities up, then take entire contents away from them simultaneously.

How do you defend your cities and the nodes with (I presume) not very many troops?

[Nelphine]

I have the highest army strength (about 20% more than the myyran AI); generally none of the AI will declare war on me.

[MrBiscuits]

I have the highest army strength (about 20% more than the myyran AI); generally none of the AI will declare war on me.

Don't you have problems with food with just three cities? Or are they all summons?

I'm baffled by the Ai declaration rules...I thought they are more likely to declare if you have a larger army than them?

[Nelphine]

No, I use buffed bezerkers. One ultra elite bezerker with holy armor, bless, endurance, holy weapon has more army strength than 7-9 level 1 units. So one stack of bezerkers has more army strength than 5-7 stacks of units that the AI has. Depending on the exact race and summons available it can be even more lopsided.

(To be exact, one bezerker has: 4*6*4*(8+4)*1.32 = 1521 defensive strength.

A level 1 (built with barracks) magic weapon (built with alchemists guild) halberdier has 4*6*2*(5+4) = 428 defensive strength.

The bezerker has [(10-2)+(8-2)]*6*20*1.98 = 3326 offensive strength.

The halberdier has (6-2)*6*20*.99 = 475 offensive strength.

Overall army strength for the bezerker is 2249; the halberdier is 451. The bezerker is worth 5 halberdiers. And many AI units are actually weaker than the halberdier, especially this early in the game.)

[Seravy]

The AI declares war if you have equal army to theirs or close to it in either direction.
For example if they have "100" army, then they will declare if you are between "75" and "125"...or "90" and "110", etc, depending on difficulty, and the AI's personality.
If your army is significantly higher, they won't declare war, and it give you a good chance to make treaties.

(the new difficulty levels in EXP10 reduced the difficulty modifier for this war declaration, so the range where the war is declared is a bit smaller on high levels than it used to be.)

(note that this is only one war declaration type - the most common one. Other types (chaotic, militarist, bad relation etc) are independent of army strength or in case of militarist, happen if your army is significantly weaker than theirs)

[MrBiscuits]

Thanks for the explanations.

It seems odd that the AI will declare when you have roughly equal armies. Surely that is the worst time to attack as you are unsure of beating them?

[Domon]

that's the last chance for an AI to prevent you from surpassing it, besides "Other types (chaotic, militarist, bad relation etc) are independent of army strength or in case of militarist, happen if your army is significantly weaker than theirs)"