Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Impy]

I've seen many posts saying that the game is mostly won using heroes, and I disagree. I've played on Lunatic Huge and won with Spell of Mastery--and only because I couldn't be bothered to finish conquering everybody. I've never understood other players' obsession with heroes when they're so vulnerable to all sorts of things.

I'm not saying that Heroes are the best way to play the game, I just find them fun. I've used hero based strategies frequently in the original game too, where heroes would die from pretty much any damaging spell. One of the main reasons I like this mod so much is the fact that it made heroes a much more prominent force. If you want to win the game on high difficulties in a reproducible manner, hero strategies are definitely not the way to do so.

Aside from Magic Immunity, Doom Damage is supposed to be very powerful, but against non-hero units who don't have superb amounts of defense, its damage isn't all that high. 12 guaranteed sounds good until you compare that to the advanced normal units that have 20+ HP, or any of the Rare summons that have just as much HP and attack power. In fact, veteran HM Magicians deal 18 average gross damage before shields, and can be buffed a lot higher (at least double with Focus Magic + Orihalcon + Prayer/Guardian) whereas Doom Bolt is 12 no matter what. Stacks of Efreets, Stone Giants, even Water Elementals, Unicorns, or Shadow Demons can take them out. I'd be much more afraid of Veteran Flame Blade, Blazing March boosted Nightmares with 16 attack +3 Hit. Sure you might take some losses, but so what? If you rely only on heroes that aren't expendable, then that's just the weakness of that strategy.

That's a lot of time and resources wasted for a single node. The reason I have never taken out a many doom bats node wasn't because it was impossible but because it would be a losing move. The issue I have is not with doom damage being powerful, but with turn 1 doom damage being non-interactive.

Lightning Bolt is even less of a problem. The Fortress has super powerful lightning bolts anyways. A weak 35 attack version is nothing. You do not need any of those spells. Even in a hero strategy, all you need is 30+ shields to reduce damage to an average of 6.33, as the spell has no +Hit, and that's easily healable. If you have Holy Armor, Lucky, Prayer, then it'll barely tickle. A fully equipped Agility hero can reach 40-50 shields after all buffs in the late game without even creating artifacts of your own. Elven Lords, Paladins, and Pikemen are a bigger threat than Lightning Bolt when buffed up, as they can one-shot Very Rares, and unlike Lightning Bolt, these aren't limited to one attack per turn.

It's not about averages. I don't reload my games. I've had champion heroes with a full set of equipment wiped out in a single turn. At 500+ hours in Caster of Magic I have no wins against chaos wizards because they only have to get lucky once, and they try their luck every single turn in every battle.

I find Air Elementals extremely weak for a Rare tier creature, but that's necessary because they're a combat summon. They are easily killed by normal units without even True Sight, as they have too little defense. You can trade any melee multifigure unit with 8 or so attack to take down one Air Elemental, and they're no match for the other Rare summons. Invisibility is much more dangerous when used on a heavily buffed unit.

They don't trade. They pick off your archers and casters and then run around the map. I've had cases where I couldn't win a single engagement due to a lack of ways to deal with them.

[massone]

That's a lot of time and resources wasted for a single node. The reason I have never taken out a many doom bats node wasn't because it was impossible but because it would be a losing move. The issue I have is not with doom damage being powerful, but with turn 1 doom damage being non-interactive.

But it's not any more non-interactive than any other ranged form of attack. It's just good against high shield troops. The bats only do 8 (9 in a node) damage each and turn 1 can only deal 3 * 9 = 27 damage to a single unit with 6 movement (5 to move, 1 to attack, and only 3 can be adjacent after 5 moves). You simply need to have the correct counters. First Strike, Teleportation, Regen, Ranged attacks, or just a lot of high health units. If you don't have it, then don't attack it. You can easily wait until the AI defeats it with autocalc before moving in, if you really want the node. Many Doom Bat nodes are very difficult, perhaps the hardest after Great Wyrms.

It's not about averages. I don't reload my games. I've had champion heroes with a full set of equipment wiped out in a single turn. At 500+ hours in Caster of Magic I have no wins against chaos wizards because they only have to get lucky once, and they try their luck every single turn in every battle.

Champions are only 1 level above Heroism buffed heroes, of course they can be easily wiped out. 300 EXP means they've fought in only 10 or fewer serious battles. Averages matter because even getting lucky if they're doing only 6.66 damage per turn, that's still 3-4 turns before your hero is dead, and never if you keep casting Exaltation, or 10+ turns if you heal. If you have regeneration or Raise Dead, it's not even a big deal if they die. Even if you win the battle and keep the items, you can just summon another random hero and Heroism them back to Commander. If those aren't options, then it only means that wizard setup doesn't work well with using heroes in risky battles where they might die. In the late game when I have the casting skill to spare for Summon Champion, I sometimes dismiss all my Champion and even up to Grand Lord level basic heroes if I don't like their abilities, effectively voluntarily killing half my roster.

There's no reason you have to use heroes against Chaos or Nature wizards. Use other expendable units to fight them if you don't have the right counters.

They don't trade. They pick off your archers and casters and then run around the map. I've had cases where I couldn't win a single engagement due to a lack of ways to deal with them.

They can't do that if you're defending a city with a wall. If you're attacking...why bring archers/casters to the battle? If you don't know there's air elementals, just send in some disposable spearmen and move it forward. They'll get killed suddenly, revealing the invisible units. Then you can send in a stack of melee troops.

[mercy]

4 + 7 Units rise from the dead to serve you:

Can it be solved that ALL 8+ units rise? When a map square is maxed out, then the game places the surplus risen units on a neighboring map square, please?
I just vanquished a 12 Naga group with mostly Syphon Life and they want to rise, but the game only gives me units to fill a map square and the rest is lost.

ALL HAIL THE UNDEAD PLAGUE!!!!!

[massone]

The game already does that. What do you mean by a 12 naga group? Only 9 units can be on one square, so you can only kill and revive 9. The only time the game destroys newly generated units is if there aren't any available square around.

[mercy]

The game already does that. What do you mean by a 12 naga group? Only 9 units can be on one square, so you can only kill and revive 9. The only time the game destroys newly generated units is if there aren't any available square around.

Then I not counted the risen units correctly. Next time I'll pay attention. Because of active Doom Mastery and usage of Syphon Life the rising happened two times. It appeared there were too many units risen and I got just one square filled with undead + my surviving hero's units. I guess, I forgot how many original troops my hero lost in the battle..

[Seravy]

Zombie Mastery can raise own dead units so it's possible to get 4+7.
They should appear on nearby tiles unless all the nearby tiles are also full or unavailable. (for blocked by enemies or water)

[Impy]

But it's not any more non-interactive than any other ranged form of attack. It's just good against high shield troops. The bats only do 8 (9 in a node) damage each and turn 1 can only deal 3 * 9 = 27 damage to a single unit with 6 movement (5 to move, 1 to attack, and only 3 can be adjacent after 5 moves). You simply need to have the correct counters. First Strike, Teleportation, Regen, Ranged attacks, or just a lot of high health units. If you don't have it, then don't attack it. You can easily wait until the AI defeats it with autocalc before moving in, if you really want the node. Many Doom Bat nodes are very difficult, perhaps the hardest after Great Wyrms.

• Other forms of ranged attacks are interactive by the virtue of being blockable or otherwise preventable. First strike isn't likely to kill them in a single hit, teleportation does nothing on turn 1 and regeneration requires you to win the fight. One of my memorable matchups against bats was with trolls where nearly a full team of war trolls got wiped out by bats at a node. The bats killed seven or so and then ran away, with no access to chaos spells and being unable to bring ranged units against bats, the battle ended in a draw, permanently killing off the trolls.
  

• Great Wyrms are the only top tier creature that can be wiped out by a team of sprites, they are not even remotely close to bats in terms of difficulty.
  

Champions are only 1 level above Heroism buffed heroes, of course they can be easily wiped out. 300 EXP means they've fought in only 10 or fewer serious battles. Averages matter because even getting lucky if they're doing only 6.66 damage per turn, that's still 3-4 turns before your hero is dead, and never if you keep casting Exaltation, or 10+ turns if you heal. If you have regeneration or Raise Dead, it's not even a big deal if they die. Even if you win the battle and keep the items, you can just summon another random hero and Heroism them back to Commander. If those aren't options, then it only means that wizard setup doesn't work well with using heroes in risky battles where they might die. In the late game when I have the casting skill to spare for Summon Champion, I sometimes dismiss all my Champion and even up to Grand Lord level basic heroes if I don't like their abilities, effectively voluntarily killing half my roster.

There's no reason you have to use heroes against Chaos or Nature wizards. Use other expendable units to fight them if you don't have the right counters.

• A single champion costs 100 mana more than a Great Drake. Their equipment costs several times that. We're taking about a spell that can kill four Great Drakes for 25 mana on a lucky hit.
  

• I don't know where you're finding the time or mana to repeatedly cast Summon Champion, I've lost games where I've tried doing that with Summon Hero.
  

• Not every build has access to a single specific Rare Life spell. Not every build has access to even so much as heroism for that matter. I was a nature mage in the game where my champion got one-shot by a lightning bolt. I had a full set of gear with both resist elements and elemental armor, so I tried an experimental fight against a weak army. That decision cost me the game before the start of my first turn.
  

• 3-4 turns of Hero life means absolutely nothing if your goal is to win the game rather than harass a lone unit of settlers.
  

They can't do that if you're defending a city with a wall. If you're attacking...why bring archers/casters to the battle? If you don't know there's air elementals, just send in some disposable spearmen and move it forward. They'll get killed suddenly, revealing the invisible units. Then you can send in a stack of melee troops.

Let me get this straight, my disposable spearman that spent the past 20 turns walking deep into enemy territory will sacrifice himself so that I can kill the invisible, flying unit that gets a copy of itself made every turn with my melee troops? Are you sure I shouldn't try to win with mass engineers instead? I can Chaos Channel them so that they get an anti-air fire breath attack, the winged ones will be sent ahead to build roads for the rest of the army and the armored ones will be the ones that take place of the poor spearman.

[Seravy]

A single champion costs 100 mana more than a Great Drake. Their equipment costs several times that. We're taking about a spell that can kill four Great Drakes for 25 mana on a lucky hit.

A possible solution could be to introduce a new ability - Lightning Immunity - for items and maybe some units. It's only possible for CoM II of course. We have to be careful with that though - lightning damage is meant to be hard to resist so an ability providing immunity to it is risky. Lightning Bolt is definitely more difficult to deal with, but having enough healing capacity to cast healing twice a turn, and a hero with good hp and defense can usually manage. Regeneration artifacts solve the problem as well if you  have access to any - a Chaos wizard usually can't do anything to permanently kill a regenerating hero. Against bad luck, Raise Dead and Resurrection both offer a way to recover the lost hero and they are the same tier as Lightning Bolt but only for Life, other realms definitely need to rely on Regeneration to consider fighting a Chaos wizard using heroes.

Stag Beetles should work well against Doom Bats, as they are fast, can attack flying units, and are both durable and single figure.

Doom Bats and Air Elementals are definitely more difficult to kill than average monsters.

Wraith Form can't cost much less because 401 is the lowest allowed for "artifact" tier powers. This will be different in CoM II where I plan to define which ability is which tier independently from the cost.

Necromancy isn't that great but we found no better solution. Raising enemy units is too powerful. Summoning in combat is already covered by Pandora's Box, having two abilities doing that is not necessary.

[Impy]

A possible solution could be to introduce a new ability - Lightning Immunity - for items and maybe some units. It's only possible for CoM II of course. We have to be careful with that though - lightning damage is meant to be hard to resist so an ability providing immunity to it is risky. Lightning Bolt is definitely more difficult to deal with, but having enough healing capacity to cast healing twice a turn, and a hero with good hp and defense can usually manage. Regeneration artifacts solve the problem as well if you  have access to any - a Chaos wizard usually can't do anything to permanently kill a regenerating hero.  Against bad luck, Raise Dead and Resurrection both offer a way to recover the lost hero and they are the same tier as Lightning Bolt but only for Life, other realms definitely need to rely on Regeneration to consider fighting a Chaos wizard using heroes.

• I would absolutely love a lightning immunity ability. Possibly as a nature power? That tends to be the realm most heavily focused on countering spell damage.
  

• I've had similar thoughts about regeneration, but in my experience it hasn't really worked out. What tends to happen is that a couple of heroes get gunned down in a tough engagement and the remaining ones don't have the combat capacity to win fast enough. A draw is still a loss when playing with regeneration.
  

Stag Beetles should work well against Doom Bats, as they are fast, can attack flying units, and are both durable and single figure.

I do love Stag Beetles for jobs like that. Don't always have access to them however. In one game I started Myrran and when I broke through to Arcanus I discovered that the wizard there was a chaos magic conjurer that's been massing bats the whole time. Myrran races don't really have a great way of dealing with stuff like that. Mammoths, Minotaurs and Golems have the health but not the speed or anti-air capabilities.

Doom Bats and Air Elementals are definitely more difficult to kill than average monsters.

The Air Elementals I have issues with are not the wild variety but the mass produced ones from the summoning spell. They're not too bad as far as killing them goes, but they are a highly oppressive battlefield force. Their speed and summoning capability effectively locks down 3/4 of the map as an unsafe area for squishy units. When the fight starts to go in your favor even slightly they stall it out to turn 25. Illusion immunity is associated with only two out of five realms so there is an excellent chance that you may not have a way to locate air elementals that don't want to fight, in which case every fight is a guaranteed loss.

Wraith Form can't cost much less because 401 is the lowest allowed for "artifact" tier powers. This will be different in CoM II where I plan to define which ability is which tier independently from the cost.

Is there no way to make it an Enchant Item power? If it needs to be swapped with something I would suggest Death Touch, since that effect is usually too costly to craft early in the game.

Necromancy isn't that great but we found no better solution. Raising enemy units is too powerful. Summoning in combat is already covered by Pandora's Box, having two abilities doing that is not necessary.

I've played a game recently where I made an artifact with two charges of Syphon Life. Throughout the course of the game that artifact gave my hero at least 10 bonus life in every fight and two undead servants of my own choice at the end of the battle. Similar in cost to Necromancy, but a lot more powerful. Zombie Mastery is another example, for just another 100 mana the effect happens globally and revives enemy units. The Death realm has so many good options for raising undead that Necromancy has to do something really special to be worth the high cost. My heroes are usually travelling with a pack of undead in games where I focus on Death magic, so the odds of this power actually reviving something are quite low.


Thank you for giving it all some thought Seravy. Item crafting has always been one of my favorite parts of Master of Magic so I'm already very much a fan of the crafting system upgrade the game has received in its conversion to Caster of Magic. I just want to have more reason to craft the more exotic powers and effects.

[Seravy]

Is there no way to make it an Enchant Item power? If it needs to be swapped with something I would suggest Death Touch, since that effect is usually too costly to craft early in the game.

No, I meant I want it to be an Artifact power so it has to cost 401 or higher.
We could reduce the cost if we want it to be an Item power but requiring Create Artifact to be able to safely fight wizards who have Crack's Call is intentional design. Every other way to do it requires Create artifact as well. (Merging, Lionheart)

Necromancy has similar functionality to Animate Dead - it allows you to use your own units twice. It's not very good unless you have powerful units where getting an extra undead replacement matters - mainly higher tier summoned creatures - but forcing the enemy to kill those creatures twice each can be a big deal (especially as the second one has a lot of extra immunities).
Maybe we could change the cost of units resurrected per hero level if it isn't good enough?
Alternately, the ability could give the raised units the "animated" buff?