Caster of Magic II Bug Reports!

[jhsidi]

enemy wizards in this game are failing to do dungeons, for whatever reason.

Probably because flying now matters and the AI stacks aren't specialized to deal with it, but of course the possibility of bugs also exist.

I'd say they either don't have enough resources yet, or don't know how to prioritize the right actions yet. A couple wizards are doing really well, but some totally failed; for example Tlaloc, a Myrran with dwarves, only had 4 active settlements when I broke into Myrror. It looked like his settlements had been continually destroyed by rampaging monsters and he hadn't really accomplished anything at all by ~1507. This is on Expert mode so in theory, having started on his own continent, he should be extremely powerful. I've got the hard rampaging monsters option on, though, which seems to cause problems in every game I use it.

Next playthrough I'll try leaving the map visible and watching what everyone does.

[jhsidi]

Bugs:
- Sharee has offered me a Wizard's Pact every single turn for about 10 turns; I thought there was a cooldown? Just end the turn and she'll make her offer. https://ufile.io/tiu0rvq2
- Endless loop exception on demons successfully casting possession on magicians. Take the active stack into the adjacent dungeon: https://ufile.io/ex8sefmt
- I think roads are ignoring Earth to Mud. Over the endturn battle, just cast Earth to Mud in front of the gates on the first turn: https://ufile.io/7c84ugi4
- Doom Bolt seems to be infinite damage. In this file, take the active stack south to attack Deathford, at 31x11. First turn, the Warlock casts Doom Bolt on Zaldron, and he dies instantly, although he has 14 health. If you just walk in Baghtru, who has 24 health, he'll also die instantly. I tested casting it on neutrals and it did 12 damage, so this is either specific to heros or specific to AI casting it. https://ufile.io/tevyjmi2

[jhsidi]

Bugs:
- End turn endless loop exception: https://ufile.io/vedt34u6
- Warp Creature can repeat results that have already been given, I think. I've observed this by casting it and getting the 0 resistance result, then a 2nd time and nothing happens.
- Trying to remove an item when a hero is on a floating island results in the "This unit will drown!" message even if the item is irrelevant to their being over water.
- Zaldron doesn't get his Dispelling Wave spell that's listed on his unit card.

Notes: 
- Chaos Channels cast on a hero gives it the full Chaos spellbook. That was always true in Master of Magic, too, but I think maybe it should be fixed, because it's a bit overpowered when combined with a hero's mana pool; at the point you've just unlocked Uncommon spells, you can run around casting Very Rare spells as long as you've got a hero with a large mana pool, which is most of them.

[Seravy]

- Chaos Channels cast on a hero gives it the full Chaos spellbook. That was always true in Master of Magic, too, but I think maybe it should be fixed, because it's a bit overpowered when combined with a hero's mana pool; at the point you've just unlocked Uncommon spells, you can run around casting Very Rare spells as long as you've got a hero with a large mana pool, which is most of them.

That's a bug. This behavior should only affect non-hero units.
Looks like I'll be busy fixing bugs tomorrow morning

[Seravy]

Update :

2020-09-14
-Fixed bug : Overland moving animation was skipped when it shouldn't have been
-fixed bug : Road rendering function is never called
-Fixed bug : The "retreat" location was incorrectly set when an overland move was not animated.
-Fixed bug : Crash when the AI wants to ask for gold but the player doesn't have enough and the AI switches the offer to demanding a spell.
-Fixed bug : Attempting to cast Wall spells outside cities causes the game to crash
-The game now checks for it already running on startup and prevents running it twice.
-Added logging of "diplomacy reaction" calls
-Fixed bug : Diplomacy reaction strength variable was not cleared after the AI's turn, triggering offers on all consecutive turns later on.
-Fixed bug : Crash when a neutral normal unit has Caster
-Fixed bug : Roads override mud
-Fixed bug : Bonus HP from effects (levels, etc) is ignored when checking if a unit died from damage.
-Fixed bug : Enchantment auras are shown on invisible units
-Invisible units now use 30% visibility on their transparency effect instead of 20%
-Fixed bug : Warp Creature can pick the same effect twice
-Item Teleport now also checks for the entire stack being seaworthy in addition to the hero itself.
-Fixed bug : Hero available combat spell list is affected by the hero becoming a fantasic unit.
-Fixed bug : Holy Arms affects fantastic units

[jhsidi]

No crashes on today's test!

Bugs:

- I requested my ally Raven to join a war against Lo Pan. He said yes, but ended up at war against Horus. I asked again for him to attack Lo Pan, and he declared war on Merlin. You can try the latter (sorry, I saved after he declared war on Horus before noticing it was the wrong person). Or ask him to declare war on Jafar; he'll say yes but end up at war with nobody at all. Also, his reply says my name, Oberic, twice instead of the target name. https://ufile.io/3s6voeli
- I got stuck in a battle turn in a kind of odd way: a Cockatrice attacked my trireme. I cast Confusion on it and succeeded. Then I began to run away with the trireme. As I was running, I cast Web on the Cockatrice. Once while it was Webbed I got control of the Cockatrice and I clicked done; no problem on that turn. But then a couple turns later, while it was still webbed, I clicked done for the trireme and the turn just halted. Everything still looked normal, but clicking any of the battle buttons (auto, flee, done, etc) did nothing. I guess I probably had control of the Cockatrice again but the combo of it being webbed broke the game. [Edit: actually I tried this again, it seems the battle controls lock up on turn 11 as long as the Cockatrice was confused and webbed.] You can try it on this endturn: https://ufile.io/jsv130ea
- Using Shift+0 to reveal the map seems like a persistent game setting. I saved my game, used it, then reloaded my game. On the reload, the map once again had fog of war; but the next turn, everything was revealed.

Notes: 
- Incorrect autoresolve result: check out the lair at 49x47. I'm not sure exactly what's in it, but it say many Demons, so at least 4 of them? Lo Pan's stack destroys it over the endturn with no losses. That's an impossible result; on the first turn the demons would cast Black Prayer, Terror, Gates of Hades and Darkness or Mana Leak, and probably follow up the next turn with at least one Black Sleep. There's a possibility that the Cockatrices and maybe the Stag Beetle would survive, but the rest would be dead. Also, is there no provision in the autoresolve for at least doing a little damage? I checked out the stack the next turn and it's at 100% health. https://ufile.io/4dsxmxkt
- Feels like I'm getting books from dungeons that are too easy. Example dungeons that gave me an extra book reward: 1) 4 Great Lizards; 2) 4 Water Elemental + 2 Phantom Beast. I don't recall getting picks from dungeons containing only Uncommon monsters in CoM1.

[Seravy]

- Using Shift+0 to reveal the map seems like a persistent game setting. I saved my game, used it, then reloaded my game. On the reload, the map once again had fog of war; but the next turn, everything was revealed.

Debug keys are not "ingame" features and persist through everything until you toggle them off or close the game completely. This allows you to keep debugging things that require reloading multiple times without having to turn them on each time.

- Feels like I'm getting books from dungeons that are too easy. Example dungeons that gave me an extra book reward: 1) 4 Great Lizards; 2) 4 Water Elemental + 2 Phantom Beast. I don't recall getting picks from dungeons containing only Uncommon monsters in CoM1.

That does work exactly like CoM I. Books can appear in these medium difficulty locations as that allows the AI a chance to find them first. Stronger monsters are almost entirely impossible for the AI to beat first unless the human player is focusing on wars and is too busy to clear lairs either intentionally or as a consequence to circumstances.

[jhsidi]

One more: Counter Magic seems to have stopped working. Here's a save, move any unit onto an enemy wizard's unit and cast Counter, nothing will be blocked. https://ufile.io/6pn14xy6

[Seravy]

- Incorrect autoresolve result: check out the lair at 49x47. I'm not sure exactly what's in it, but it say many Demons, so at least 4 of them? Lo Pan's stack destroys it over the endturn with no losses. That's an impossible result; on the first turn the demons would cast Black Prayer, Terror, Gates of Hades and Darkness or Mana Leak, and probably follow up the next turn with at least one Black Sleep. There's a possibility that the Cockatrices and maybe the Stag Beetle would survive, but the rest would be dead. Also, is there no provision in the autoresolve for at least doing a little damage? I checked out the stack the next turn and it's at 100% health. https://ufile.io/4dsxmxkt

That stack definitely looks capable of destroying the demons. Every unit included can attack a flying enemy, and none of them use missile ranged attacks which the demons would be immune to.

Demons themselves are weak creatures, barely stronger than a fire elemental, They also have low resistance so as soon as any melee turns happen, the cockatrices probably destroy them almost instantly. However demons have no ranged attacks, they "only" have Caster 40. This is converted into a magical ranged attack (it can't be counted as a wizard's MP because there is no wizard and their known spell list wouldn't be relevant.) at a rate of 0.1 damage output (hitchance*attack) per MP.
So basically each Demon is equivalent to a creature that has ~13 magical ranged attack strength without a hit bonus. That actually is decent considering the number of units but the enemy army can also shoot back from 3 sprites and a Caster hero on top of wizard spellcasting. I would estimate there is a little damage done but soon enough the melee turns destroy the demons.

...and that's exactly what happens. The 3 sprites are gone and the stag beetle has 5 damage on it.
I tried it one more time, now 2 sprites survived but one had 3 damage on it, and the Gargoyle had 6 damage. 1 Berserker figure is also missing for 3 damage. So that's a total of 5+3+6+3 = 17 damage.
Third time I counted about 25 damage total.
Easy to miss because the stack has a grand total of like 150 health but there definitely was damage and reasonable considering the low attack power of Demons.

Even if this was real normal combat the cockatrices and berserker would kill the demons by turn 3. The spells from the demons will most likely do damage but ~25 is a realistic estimate (the globals don't do damage except gate of hades which doesn't do much in a short battle either. Direct damage spells do but each demon can only cast one and half of them will cast globals instead. So it's like 3-4 Reaper Slashes and that's all the damage the demons can do.)

[Seravy]

2020-09-15
-Fixed bug : Declare War On and Break Alliance requests target the wrong enemy player.
-Fixed bug : The above shows the human player's name instead of the target's in the message.
-Fixed bug : When a confused unit fails to move randomly (for example surrounded or walking unit on sea), it doesn't set the movement to zero so it'll keep trying and the turn freezes.
-Fixed bug : Counter Magic strength starts at 1 instead of 70.