I've got well over a hundred hours out of this mod so far and expect a few hundred more. Thank you so much for making this amazing addition to one of my all-time favorite games. In my opinion, every aspect of the original has been improved upon. Due to the AI improvements however, some serious balance issues have appeared. Since the new AI generally makes good decisions, some combinations of spells and units have become extremely difficult to win against unless you have a perfectly suited build. Since the player has limited ability to modify their picks after the game has started, I wanted to offer some suggestions to prevent unavoidably impossible situations from occurring quite as often. This post may get lengthy, but I wanted to make a case for preventing a few nasty situations I have encountered during my playtime.
How to Win in Caster of Magic
I'll start with an explanation of how I secure a victory, so it's easier to understand why some situations are so difficult to deal with. I play on Master difficulty with no reloading. A winning build in this mod needs to be able to quickly take out neighboring neutrals, nodes and dungeons with minimal unit losses and then transition into a force that can take out enemy cities one after another with minimal unit losses. I won't go into the details of the exploration phase since it's more or less balanced. There are however only three ways to win the mid to late game that I have discovered: heroes, regeneration and big summons.
- Heroes: I'm really glad that Heroes are now something you can actively rely on, much unlike the original game. Using heroes requires at least two of Tactician, Warlord and Famous complemented by magic items from Artificer or the more chance based Charismatic + Famous combo. Almost impossible without at least one Life book for healing, but more on this later.
- Regeneration: Trolls, Werewolves, Shadow Demons, and Giant Lizards. Get a big stack of them, pump them with spells and don't get wiped. More vulnerable than Heroes and requires at least five books for all except Trolls. Does not require life books however.
- Big Summons: Very Rare summons only in fact. Everything else is not sustainable enough to make it. Requires Specialist, Conjurer and Sage Master. This can also be a transition from the summon based regeneration strategy. Typically requires healing to work, but with no more than two Life books or nothing but Life books to prevent the research pool from getting diluted. High risk since you can't guarantee that you'll get a very rare summoning spell at all.
Other strategies that used to work in the original to win Impossible difficulty games no long apply. 90% of the time the game is won using primarily heroes, which again I consider a welcome change, but not one without complications.
Game Stoppers
These units and spells make the game unbeatable if you didn't start with a build that counters them.
Warlocks: If the new smart AI has access to Dark Elves, it will eventually fill every city with 9 units of Warlocks. If you do not have access to Fire Storm or invisible units that the AI cannot find a way to make visible in a single turn, you will have a nearly impossible time winning that game. Doom Bolt is a strong but balanced spell when it's cast no more than a couple times a turn, 9 instances at once in every city is simply not something that can be beaten. Worse yet this situation usually happens in the late game after you've defeated a couple of wizards and went through a tower just to discover that the fourth wizard spawned as Dark Elves and is impossible to beat. I highly urge you to make Warlocks into just a strong ranged caster with same spell access as regular mages.
Air Elemental: A scary enough unit in its own right, the new battle AI has made this unit impossible to beat without True Sight or access to undead. Since Air Elementals run away when a battle can't be won and can be summoned mid-battle, you will lose EVERY battle if you don't have an answer. Invisibility in general is difficult to deal with in this mod, so I suggest adding countermeasures to a couple of other spell schools. Perhaps a see invisible mutation in the Chaos Channels pool or having an invisibility dispelling effect in Earth to Mud?
Psionic Blast: Psionic Blast is here not because the spell's broken, but for the same reason as to why Warlocks made the list. Big stacks of mages each casting Psionic Blast will wipe out any unit without access to True Sight. Although not as oppressive as Doom Bolt, this is a more common situation to encounter and frequently just as game ending as Warlocks. I suggest increasing the mana cost of Psionic Blast out of range of everyday mages or decreasing their mana pool and the cost of fireball below the cost of Psionic Blast.
Crack Calls: The biggest problem with this spell is that it only has one counter. Every Nature mage that knows Crack Calls will also know Web making flight a non-issue. I've had to drop games 8 hours in, after an opponent wizard learned Crack Calls and I had no answer. Since the damage is irrecoverable this one spell will counter every one of your win conditions unless you have access to Wraith Form. I suggest adding countermeasures to either Web or Crack Calls. Perhaps Immolation can give a unit Web immunity while Pathfinding (from either Land Linking or innate ability) provides immunity to Crack Calls?
Wave of Despair: Similar issue to Crack Calls. You need Cold immunity from either Inner Fire, playing Werewolves as your win condition or hiring exactly Cirno. More sources of Cold Immunity across other schools of magic are needed, and I propose Resist Elements or Elemental Armor as the most likely candidates.
Extremely Annoying
Spells from the original game that were once a non-issue but are a menace in the hand of an AI that knows what it's doing.
Spell Blast: The new AI
loves this spell. When an opponent gets their hands on Spell Blast, any spell you cast that takes four or more turns to complete will get Spell Blasted every time. It's non-interactive and extremely anti-fun since it stops all of the big spells you've been working towards from being played altogether. Feels awful to have to research it too, since it's not something you'd ever want to cast and it's most certainly not something you'd trade to another wizard. I honestly don't think this spell is salvageable, I would love to see it go.
Drain Power: Similar to Spell Blast this is a low interactivity spell that the AI spams every turn. Sometimes you're not going to be able to make up the hundreds of points of mana that you're losing every turn and will lose the game. If Aether Flux is in effect, expect to lose 500-1000 mana a turn. This is another spell I'd love to see gone altogether. I do however think it's also possible to remove the bully aspect of it and rework it into a spell that sacrifices time to create mana similar to how
Artificer and
Runemaster combo worked in the original game.
Possible Re-balance Suggestions
Units and spells that I think limit gameplay in one way or another.
Heal: Currently two out of the three winning strategies I've developed including the most common one hinge on this spell. I've tried playing without Heal, using Life Drain, Syphon Life, Nature's Cures, Vampiric Weapons or just stacking massive amounts of armor. Nothings really replaces it. So I feel that unless I'm playing with a regeneration strategy, I must take at least one life book, preferably two. Of all the spells currently in the game, nothing is as limiting to pick possibilities as Heal. I almost feel like this should be an Arcane spell or have an Arcane variant that only targets heroes and fantastic creatures.
Lightning Bolt: Easy to get and can be stupidly strong for its cost. Actually outdamages Warp Lightning and Doom Bolt from time to time. Very difficult to defend against, I've had a champion tier Hero with Elemental Armor and Resist Elements active get one-shot by this spell from full health. Just lowering the damage a bit might be enough of a fix, or applying armor from protective spells like Bless and Resist Elements
after the armor piercing effect of Lightning Bolt.
Mystic Surge: Very random and potentially very scary. I actually love the flavor and effect of this spell, but the lucky roll outliers here are a little too crazy. Blood Lust and Haste on pikemen can turn even a 20+ armor Hero into mush before you get a turn. There's also a lot of dud spells like Water Walking which feel really bad to get if you're the one doing the spell casting. It also seems to give Orichalcum as a unit enchantment, which isn't a spell.
Light: Light magic in general is currently in a category of it's own as far as balancing is concerned. It's the strongest realm for human players and the weakest for AI players. While the other schools of magic have a healthy mix of summons, buffs, debuffs and direct damage spells, Light is centered almost entirely around the idea of making one giant, unstoppable unit and then protecting it. It's got access to health buffing effects that no other realm can do, it's got access to True Sight which shuts down an entire realm of magic, it's got powerful early game armor buffs and movement buffs that don't come into play until much later for other realms if they do at all. On the other hand AI players with nothing but Light books are the easiest thing to bully in the game. Every other realm has spells that you feel you have to watch out for, except Light. I propose making the Light realm give up a few of its "extremely good for human players" spells in favor of a few threat spells. Maybe a common "resist or die" spell similar to Black Sleep or Confusion, a semi-scary summon or a strong direct damage spell.
Doom Bat: Much of what was said about Warlocks can be restated for the new Doom Bats. Being able to hit anything before the Player gets a turn for unstoppable damage is very difficult to navigate around. Unlike with Warlocks, Fire Storm isn't even a counter in this case. The only reason they're in this bracket instead of the the "Game Stoppers" bracket is because they're a lot more difficult to make a big stack of. Reducing their movement by even one point fixes the problem entirely. I'd also prefer if they did less damage and came in multiple figures so that you could reduce the damage in stages. Sort of like a scarier version of Cockatrices.
Encounter Zone Defenders Balance: A Node guarded by 9 Earth Elemenals requires two bowman to clear and will give insanely good rewards, a cave guarded by 4 sprites will demolish 5 of the 8 bowmen you sent to take it and give you 150 gold. I'm not sure how easy this would be to change, but the game should value flying, fast, gaze/breath attack or ranged defenders a lot higher for determining rewards.
Thank you again Seravy for this wonderful mod.
You've done a fantastic job and quite possibly created my new favorite game.
I'm very much looking forward to any future releases.
use ghouls.
