Test games played

[Seravy]

Final part : https://youtu.be/s7vq7w0I5GU

[Seravy]

Beastmen Sorcery : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjYWAJ_0...e=youtu.be
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W0OWctp...e=youtu.be
Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP6n7NIk...e=youtu.be

I've found quite a few problems so even though I wanted to release this update immediately after the test game, I'll have to spend another day or two on it.

I've uncovered a surprising amount of reasons what causes the AI on the other plane to sometimes end up unexpectedly weak.
-If two settlers board ships exactly 1 turn apart from each other, they'll cause the other to get off the ship, blocking transportation for a long time.
-Monsters and raiders can cause significant damage, way more than expected. The condition to spawn them mostly on the primary plane, already present in the original MoM, doesn't actually work because it fails to clear the already selected target.
-The AI selects a tile randomly for the "unload point" of settlers on the target continent. For long, thin continents this can easily lead to going an additional 20+ distance for no reason. There is also no relation between the unload point and the location the settler will be used at, so they can then move quite a lot on land as well. What's worst, these far away cities are extra vulnerable to being destroyed by neutrals.

I've been able to solve these it seems, currently testing the solutions. Only after this, can I move to fix the other issues I found during the test game.

[asw3]

Now using ODS to record my games, it produces mkv files. I used virtualdubmod to merge parts previously, but that only works on avi. I tried looking for alternatives but everything I download pretends to be free then asks for money and doesn't really work. What should I use to merge multiple mkv files, preferably without having to reencode it? (same as the option "direct stream copy" in virtualdubmod)

I started a Night Stalker test game but would prefer to upload the first three parts already recorded in one single file as they are kinda short individually.

I know this is late, but in case you still need a suggestion you can use avidemux, its a successor to virtualdub/mod (which was discontinued a long time ago from what I know, strange that you are even using it), works with mkv (and avi, mp4...) and has direct stream copy. And its completely free.

[zitro1987]

So I am revisiting Caster of Magic after a couple of years, this time letting go of my tendency of copy-pasting a bunch of modded data. I did however change the distance between towns from 3 to 4 to lessen game duration.

Advanced difficulty, large landmass (to balance out the town distance mod)
Dark Elf, 9 Chaos, Myrran, Archmage, Omniscient. Spell choices: Firebolt, shatter, warp creature, hell hounds, flame blade, fire giant, lightning bolt.


-Started awkwardly, with a settler hitting a deadend and being used 12 or so turns late. 
-Summoned hell hound after hell hound, mixed with recruited apprentices to protect towns, conquer 1 neutral, and disappointing lair results.
-I used gold to buy some settlers and a lot of terrain was pretty good. 2 opposing wizards took good spots, so I declared war on 1 while the other conveniently got hit with rampaging monsters.
-Omniscient was a lifesafer to my defensive playing. The dark elf + magic market + parthenon strategy easily helped me reach 100 power and surpass my opponents. 
-Fire Giant got researched and numerous dark elf priests were recruited to give them company in my eventual 2-3 stacks. The priest+giant combination was excellent against more advanced lairs, the biggest reward being fire storm reward. Got some heroes (and prisoners), but underutilized them.
-Once I researched lightning bolt, I got some boats and began attacking that wizard I declared war against. He played dark magic and conveniently dark elves. The dark priests and fire giant stacks fought well (especially against werewolves), but losses took place. He already had a couple of warlock units per town, but firestorm weakened or outright killed them 
-Once my towns (and the ones I conquered) got wizard's tower, my power surpassed 400. I also used warlocks for city defense as my opponent did send decent stacks my way. I researched chimera and some other spells and built fantastic stables to get superior flying stacks. Opponent defeated. Power well over 500, and skill over 120 with barely any amplifying towers. Remember I modded the distance between towns, so this is impressive. I control majority of myrror. Time to research efreet! I probably won the game already.

Seriously, chaos dark elf omniscient is incredible. You swim in mana and have better gold reserves for not transferring it to mana. Nothing about it is overpowered or broken - it just progresses fast in quite the exciting way.

This mod has improved so much. The building QUEUE system is OUTSTANDING. That, and my town distance tweak, makes the game go twice as fast. The last thing missing in my opinion is an option to make the 'auto' allow wizard spellcasting to just watch me mop up the opponents battle after battle. Many games do this and rarely play better than the average human, so why not caster of magic?

[Seravy]

I did however change the distance between towns from 3 to 4 to lessen game duration.

Does that include changing the AI to recognize that change? It's probably going to have a large negative impact if they try to send settlers to tiles that aren't available and CoM has some completely rewritten functions for the AI sending settlers so I'm not sure the usual way of changing that does work.
...it makes little sense if you play on large land anyway though. Isn't it safer and easier to play on Fair or Small land without this change?

The last thing missing in my opinion is an option to make the 'auto' allow wizard spellcasting to just watch me mop up the opponents battle after battle. Many games do this and rarely play better than the average human, so why not caster of magic?

This was considered once but I decided against it. For most cases I'd want the Auto to not spend my mana crystals and it would be difficult to add two different Auto buttons for the two different options - remember, you can't go to your settings screen during the enemy turn and you might want to spend mana in one battle but not in another.
It's also very hard to draw the line how good or bad the AI should be when casting spells automatically. It definitely can't be as good as the existing AI - combat spellcasting is one area where the AI is pretty good.
Final Fantasy 12 had good battle AI (the player can configure the AI) which made the game the most boring thing I ever played. A game that can play itself and win is a very bad thing because it'll make the player unnecessary.

If you are so close to winning that you can afford using an auto feature that plays poorly, turning on the "Automatic combat" to skip battles entirely is an option.

[zitro1987]

Hi Seravy. I’m aware the town distance modification is not intended. I was surprised to see your AI adapting reasonably well to a major change like this, expanding with logic, and providing somewhat of a challenge in a relatively low difficulty level

While im not a great fan of the thin island style of smaller landmass i would try a similar game without my town distance modification and ‘small landmass’. That would be my way of still playing a shorter game with fewer units and cities

I understand your decision about combat. With the code we are given, it is not like we can pick 4 choices: auto, AI with spells, AI without spells, and manual combat on a case by case basis. The new Master of Orion got it right

[Seravy]

I will probably finish working on CoM 6.04 later this week or next week and will play a test game before release, any recommendations what to play?

[Sapher]

Anything on lunatic.

[ksasaki]

I been having fun with this build:

Alchemy conjurer omniscient astrologer

5 nature 2 death 1 sorcery

Natures eye sprites wild boars web

Giant spiders

Skeletons

Klackons.

Use your massive gold reserves converted to mana and summon tons of good stuff to conquer nodes fast, nature’s eye first for massive scouting boost.

[Sapher]

I been having fun with this build:

Alchemy conjurer omniscient astrologer

5 nature 2 death 1 sorcery

Natures eye sprites wild boars web

Giant spiders

Skeletons

Klackons.

Use your massive gold reserves converted to mana and summon tons of good stuff to conquer nodes fast, nature’s eye first for massive scouting boost.

Yeah, i tried it yesterday. It can work. Although i don't get the idea behind spiders and so many green books. Was the plan to get to very rare green summons?