Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Seravy]

They should all get the same experience right? Should that experience show up this turn?

Yes and it should be applied at end of combat. That doesn't sound right, unless Torin was undead (or the battle was worth 1 EXP...)

I wasn't paying SUPER careful attention.. but I'm pretty sure when I banished the Myrran AI (they declared war on me, due to their strength reaching 95% of mine I think - they're peaceful), I GAINED 2000 mana. I thought that was removed?

Removed from banished, kept on defeated wizards if I remember well. Based on what got me thinking there is a bug once, you probably looted artifacts and destroyed some - that creates mana and easy to forget about it.

Obviously, I don't think 1 test game is enough, but I'd recommend watching other games and seeing if we can drop the difference from +/- 20 to +/-10.

That's a good idea. I'm under the impression the timing for towers breaking was the problem the whole time and land size had nothing to do with it. Obviously if towers break when Arcanus is still shared by 3-4 wizards who are fighting each other, and Myrror is one wizard who never lost a unit in battle, the difference is too wide, but give it more time and the player can reduce the gap by conquering the Arcanus plane whereas the Myrran has nowhere to expand into left.

[Nelphine]

Ah, yes, magic item melting. That's almost definitely it.

Well, Torin being at 2, and Jaer being at 1409 AND Jaer going up a level seems odd. That would mean that Jaer went up a level at 1408. And since the battle was many water elementals (I don't remember precisely how many), I doubt it was worth 2 exp. And it was Torin's second round of existing.

Every battle after that has worked correctly. What I'm wondering is, was that the turn I cast heroism on him? Could that prevent xp gain from combats that turn? Sadly, I don't have a clue when the save was, as that's when the war broke out.

I've razed 4 cities (one was very small with lots of room to grow, the other 3 were the natural expansion from his capital), but of the other 19 dwarf cities, none were neutrals (I've been playing tradesies with a few cities which is why he hasn't been defeated yet). It seems VERY unlikely that there were any neutral dwarves - maybe 1. Definitely feels like too low on number of neutrals.

As a comparison, there were 7 neutrals on Arcanus (2 gnolls, lizardman, halfling, 2 high men, high elf).

[Nelphine]

That game was fast enough I actually managed to defeat Sharee (the last wizard) before she could surrender. Mwahaha!

[zitro1987]

I'm not concerned of the +/- 20% land difference. In general gaming, myrran still has the advantage of not having to fight and win wars to have many towns. On 'fair', I usually start with 9-15 towns then some wars get more closer to 20. Meanwhile, myrran by that point already might have 20, could get closer to 25, without the losses of war.

Of course, if you win all arcanus wars, you will have more towns than myrran, but that can be challenging to do. Isn't that the point? If you beat 2-3 arcanus wizards, you should probably be winning the game, not be tied with myrran in cities.

[Seravy]

Checked the code for combat experience and it's pretty much this :

"If unit is alive, is the chosen one, or a normal unit, or a chaos channelled unit, owned by the winner, then gain the experience. If the winner is nonhuman, apply the exp multiplier as well."

I see no possibility for the chosen to miss gaining exp with that.
Heroism shouldn't have an effect on experience (but it might prevent the level up window from showing up if cast during battle).
So I have no idea why that one battle didn't work.

[Nelphine]

Oh well. I'll try to watch for it in future.

[teelaurila]

Of course, if you win all arcanus wars, you will have more towns than myrran, but that can be challenging to do. Isn't that the point? If you beat 2-3 arcanus wizards, you should probably be winning the game, not be tied with myrran in cities.

I would say ideally in this case you would be coming from behind with the Myrran clearly leading (in resources, research and skill in particular, not necessarily cities). The easiest end-game scenario should be something like 1 arcanus wizard conquered and 2 allied when the joined war against the Myrran monster starts. So diplomacy is a way to get ahead as well.

[Ymer72]

I installed the latest version and have started 20 huge maps to see what differs with the new treasurerules. I am mostly interested in how many more skills/spellbooks is available. Before this update the usual total number of picks (skill/spellbook/very rare spell) would range between 8 and 15, now it seems more like ranging between 5-10. Am I unlucky or is it due to the changes?

[Ymer72]

I like the ideas with the new treasuresystem but I think huge maps=longer games=more spellbooks would be nice. And if there is a way to guarantee that atleast one site has 2 picks would be nice, cause otherwise there is no other way to get 2 pick skills than choosing them from the start.

[Nelphine]

I know part of the treasure changes is specifically to make starting picks more important. Not so much for avoiding reports during play, but to encourage choosing more books - if you play a 4 book, 6 (worth 8) retort strategy, one disadvantage is supposed to be that you will have very few end game spells. However, by playing on huge, you can negate this difficulty by finding lots of books (my best attempt so far I found ~18 picks of extra books and retorts); since you find them before the late game, you never have to deal with the weakness of your original strategy.

On the specific topic of 2 pick retorts, I think it is a good thing to avoid having a guaranteed such treasure. If it is guaranteed, it will be in a very strong lair/node/tower. That means, 90% of games, the human will get it - which means you can plan your strategy on getting it. By itself that effectively means the human is playing with 14 picks, as much as a lunatic AI. That's too powerful, and either means the human has a huge advantage, or necessitates increasing the number of picks for the AI, which we've already reduced specifically for balance reasons.