New difficulty level??

[Seravy]

I've been thinking and there seems to be a need for a difficulty level between Normal and Advanced, one where the AI does not get a resource advantage, like Normal, but is able to play custom wizards and Myrror like Advanced.

Furthermore, it could be used to make the existing "Normal" easier, as it seems to be quite overwhelming to players who are not yet familiar with the mod. As is the AI plays at least good enough to beat those players without a resource advantage - and that might not be a good thing as people generally don't want to set difficulty to "Easy" if they already know the (original) game. It could keep the resource at 100% unlike Easy, but the AI would have certain features disabled to reduce the difficulty.

I'm not playing much on Normal but this is the impression I got from watching videos. Do tell me what you think.

[Nelphine]

I agree

[Seravy]

Also what would be the name for that difficulty?
Can't call it "normal 2" so we need something better. Not sure if we even have space for the name, will need to check that, too.

[crusader.mike]

Evolved/Established/Mature

[zitro1987]

We could place normal as 3rd difficulty out of 7

Stick a 'Very Easy' or 'Novice' first  ...  Novice / Easy / Normal / Advanced / Expert ...

Compared to v1.40 (which had easy/normal/hard/extreme/impossible) , we have a roughly tougher game due to improved AI. Given your proposal to make the 2nd difficulty easier, it could have an easier sounding name.


Or we could do the following, something indicating that the 3rd difficulty really indicates it's the option where there's an equal playing field.

Easy / Normal / Balanced / Advanced
Easy / Normal / Classic / Advanced 
Easy / Normal / Fair / Advanced

or play with words like 'moderate' 

Easy / Normal / Moderate / Advanced
Easy / Normal / Intermediate / Advanced

[muxecoid]

Call it "Fair"

[Seravy]

While working on this I noticed the chance of losing population and the chance of losing buildings is not identical after combat. Don't remember if that's intentional or not (probably it is).

Either way, it's :

Pop killed % = Destruction*2+(10 if non-neutral attacker conquers)+(50 if rampaging monster win), capped at 50

Building % lost = Destruction+(50 if neutral attacker)+Difficulty modifier if non-neural attacker, capped at 75
Difficulty modifier being 10,20,28,35,40,45.

For some reason I always thought it's a +50 if the defender is Neutral, but I guess not? Weird. I must have misread that I guess. This part definitely isn't as intended, losing to neutrals doesn't really need to have a greater penalty than losing to anyone else (unless they are monsters but this isn't specific to that here, unlike population) but conquering neutrals should.

[Nelphine]

Neutrals can't expect to hold a city. So they are raiders, so it makes sense they would cause more damage.

[Seravy]

Added the new difficulty : 
   

(human starting gold seems to have a typo, it's 40 for lunatic and 20 more for each level below)

Most things are roughly similar to before, except the AI treaty offer modifier is now 10 better than before (-30 instead of -40). A bit unsure about that but I guess it's fine. You kinda NEED diplomacy to work if you want to survive at those levels.

[Seravy]

Uploaded CasterBeta.zip which contains the difficulty and the AI tower/lair targeting updates.
I won't have time to test within the next 36 or so hours, unfortunately, so try this at your own risk, and report any problems found here.

-The +/-20% plane size modifier now also applies if the plane with fewer wizards has 0 of them. There is no need for the empty plane to be equal size to the other one. (Normal difficulty games)
-Demon Lords now have 8 armor but 35 health again. (Still might be subject to further changes)
-5.2 change now actually works : “-When an AI wants to offer a peace treaty or trade, it'll skip the “Break Alliance” check. It'll only do that if it is trying to offer a Wizard's Pact or Alliance.“
-Very Rare spells cannot be found in treasure until turn 200 instead of turn 140.
-AI wizards will not attack Towers before turn 200 unless at ;east one tower is already cleared.
-AI wizards will pretend Air Elementals, Sprites and Demons have higher strategic strength in lairs until a certain turn count, to make up for these units being underrated in strategic combat compared to their actual difficulty for human players.
-If a neutral attacking player fails to move for 8 turns instead of 4, they'll abandon battle to give more time for humans to raise their units as undead.
-New difficulty level : Fair, between Normal and advanced. (see table for before and after change effects of each level)

-Adjusted Wave of Despair again : base strength is now 255, reduction by resistance is (resistance+10) instead of (2*resistance).
-Adjusted AI use priority for Wave of Despair - now calculated expected effective strength to decide on using it or not and priority is proportional to strength- must expect at least 9 damage to be allowed to cast it. (this is a cost 66 spell - if we can't deal at least as much damage as a single target uncommon nuke, it's a waste of skill to cast it, especially as damage is distributed on targets.)