Caster of Magic II Bug Reports!

[Slingers]

I'm just not sure why an eccentric plot device is needed. ...

It is not necessary. Basically, this game can be played similar to chess. But take a look at the diplomatic statements made by these ladies and gentlemen. Some can be portrayed as quite eccentric. Google says eccentrics are more common among social elites. What else are wizards who rule an empire?

[Intaka]

Ok, so I read all 85 pages of this thread again and looked for 3 hours on the googles. I am at a loss. I know this isn't the right thread, but indulge me please.

You got me digging around in the file structure to fix the combat grid (which I did and posted the file here but no one commented on yet), and that inevitably lead me to looking at various other files.

This let me see that the wizards.ini file (default wizards) is easily editable. Huzzah. While I realize for testing purposes I need the default files, for custom game setups after release this will be very helpful. (all chaos wizards, etc). Very exciting for long term replayability. All about customization, you know.

Units.ini and Items.ini however seem to do nothing. In the main directory Units.dat and Items.dat are neither archives (cannot be unzipped) nor csv files (can't be opened in a spreadsheet).

1) How are these things (the units.ini and dats, for example) related?

2) Will those files be editable at some point, in the same way as the default wizards are now? Obviously in default MoM there was itemmake.exe for that purpose for items.dat, but ini file(s) or csv file(s) which are directly editable seem like less hassle for both you as a programmer and end user editors.

3) What is your vision for mod support once the game is released? It seems like a completely different graphics set can be created and substituted directly into the game as it stands now. Also very exciting stuff, but secondary to being able to play with different balance aspects down the line, for me personally. I probably spent 1000 hours modding skyrim balance over all installations. Such a great game. Kind of broken yet fixable. Really that's my Achilles heel. Something I can fix.

[Seravy]

units.dat and items.dat contain the same information as the ini files but already loaded and saved as it is in the variable after loading. They're generated automatically to make loading faster.
Deleting the files causes the game to load from the ini and create new dat files.

I'm planning to keep the files as they are now so it will be easy to mod.

[Seravy]

Abandoning my current test game due to some bugs and because it's already obvious I'm winning anyway.
After going through the reported bugs, there will be an update.

[Slingers]

... You got me digging around in the file structure to fix the combat grid (which I did and posted the file here but no one commented on yet), ...

I've tried it out. But I was already used to the golden one. Everyone will be happy with the graphics of this game, because it’s BYO!

Notes during a test game with the current Alpha version:
(Normal/13/Large/Large/Alchemy/Warlord/Myrran/2N/2S/4L)

• It is not possible to see the Race of an AI Settler if it was something other than LM or D. They could be renamed Orc-Settlers, Klackon-Settlers and the like, or one could say that’s intended. The own ones - wait – they have different stats! Regular Beastmen and Dark Elf Settlers look almost the same. But DE has 10 Health and BM 20! Really? I expected 11.
  
• The unitlevel help text does not tell you how much EP is needed for Ultra Elite and Champion. Ultra Elite seems to need EP180 just like Elite, but the units EP continues to grow. The first Slingers now have EP758.
  
• Dark Elf units are out of ammo and can no longer attack flying units, but the Flee button does not turn green.
  
• Sss’ra banished Merlin December 1511. Since then it has been nice and quiet. I haven’t bothered to contact the other wizards yet. There are 13 on Arcanus. The game time is now August 1512 and one City was “hit by a Meteor leaving widespread destruction.” Only there was nothing. Monsters were spotted around the same town in the same turn. Or did I remember it wrongly? I checked both planes using Shift O. OMG – every single spot on Arcanus is populated. Many Cities have a lot of corrupted tiles. In comparision, Myrror is a huge nature reserve. The Chancellor could mention a Meteor strike or some other event in his report.
  
• Does a found book always have the correct number of spells, or it can be fewer due to duplicates of spells obtained by trading or finding?
  
•  Feb 1513 - 10 picks found on Myrror so far
  
•  April 1513 - Merlin returns
  
•  The Bow of Hazard sticks the Pandoras Box trait to every hero who has ever held it. Cool!
  
•  Road construction is very efficient with a Windwalking Engineer in a stack of 5. 
  

[Seravy]

Usually numbers are not my topic, but while I’m at it: It’s Sorcery Conjunction and the Skill bar shows 453 SP. Skill: 33, +6.7 Skill/Turn … it should be 6.8. The turn before that was 447SP +8.4/Turn (instead of 8.5 or 8.59). However, the Skill only increased from 26 to 33 = 7. Whatever ... Wherever wood is chopped, splinters must fall.

Checked and the calculation is based on your current "cost" to gain 1 skill point.
So numbers above 1 full skill point won't be perfectly accurate as it doesn't include the extra cost for already having gained 1 skill point.
This does need fixing.

[Seravy]

The unitlevel help text does not tell you how much EP is needed for Ultra Elite and Champion. Ultra Elite seems to need EP180 just like Elite, but the units EP continues to grow. The first Slingers now have EP758.

Those levels are not obtainable by experience, you need Warlord or Crusade.
Units can gain more experience after the max level but it does nothing for them at the moment. Maybe it's worth capping the experience like in CoM I.

Edit : it's a bug. The cap already exists but looks at the hero max level for all units.

[Seravy]

Dark Elf units are out of ammo and can no longer attack flying units, but the Flee button does not turn green.

Did you satisfy all other conditions?
For example did the opposing wizard stop casting spells 3 turns ago?

City was “hit by a Meteor leaving widespread destruction.” Only there was nothing.

The event seems to do the call to the destruction effect, maybe it was just luck. Corruption chance is 50% per tile so it's not impossible to have no corrupted tiles, just very unlikely.

Does a found book always have the correct number of spells, or it can be fewer due to duplicates of spells obtained by trading or finding?

It always has the correct number of spells, unless it's impossible because you already have all the spells from that tier.

Road construction is very efficient with a Windwalking Engineer in a stack of 5.

That's definitely a feature

[Seravy]

Update :

2020-12-21
-Fixed bug : Already defeated wizards are not counted when choosing wizards for elimination, resulting it the elimination quota never being satisfied.
-Fixed bug : typo in number of desired wizards formula
-Added logging of the elimination feature details
-Fixed bug : Neutrals with no way to reach a target that belongs to the intended target player do not change to targeting another player and get stuck instead.
-Combat grid now uses gold lines (Tileselect_8 image in data folder)
-Replaced Ninja hero overland icon (by Slingers)
-AI combat spell selection not considers number of figures when looking at the ranged power of enemy units.
-Fixed bug : When pressing the Plane button, units in the stack but already on the desitination plane also switch planes. (This can happen if you only select some of the units standing on a tower, change planes, then select the other units that are still in the previous plane as well. No matter how many times you press the Plane button)
-Fixed bug : Altar of Peace on AI cities didn't include the human player in the relation average
-Fixed bug : Altar of Peace included defeated wizards in the calculation.
-Adjusted mercenary offer chance (1% per 5 fame instead of 1% per 1 fame)
-Mercenary chance is now capped at 33% instead of 20%.
-Fixed bug : It was possible to cancel enemy city curses on the player's cities as if they were their own spells.
-Fixed bug : Atlantis event causes a crash
-Fixed bug : AI Divine Order desired calculation includes defeated wizards
-Fixed bug : AI Divine Order desired calculation checks wrong player's spellbooks
-Fixed global enchantment frame being 1 pixel off center
-Casting Wall spells in combat now forces the AI to reevaluate their "stay behind walls" strategy.
-Wall of Darkness will now force units to stay inside the walls when the enemy has ranged superioritity but does NOT have illusion immune ranged superiority, overriding previous "leave walls" flags.
-Fixed bug : Chosen has gold maintenance instead of mana maintenance.
-Fixed bug : Plane button chances selected stack position (the minimap marker) even if the units can't change plane at their current location.
-Added Vampire to the list of units that should never stay behind the walls and should always seek enemies to attack
-Fixed bug : AI equips the same item on multiple heroes, duplicating the item
-Fixed bug : After battle, dead units that weren't part of that combat also raise as zombies
-Fixed bug : AI allocates 90% on skill producing during Sorcery conjunctions when they are low on MP instead of when they are NOT low on MP.
-When production of a settler would be completed but there aren't at least 2000 people in the city, production completion will not happen and will be delayed for later turns. Extra producion will accumulaty and carry over to the next project as usual.
-Fixed bug : Enchant item screen help for Lionheart, Flight, True Sight do not work
-Fixed bug : Displayed skill gain on magic screen is slightly inaccurate
-Newly created settler units will have the race added to their unit name.
-Fixed bug : Normal units can gain EXP after the maximal level.
-Fixed bug : Padora's Box effect is not removed from units after moving the item.

Next thing to do : I'll start running some AI player only test games for the elimination mechanic to see if we can remove it, or need to keep/replace it.

[Seravy]

Test results on the Elimination mechanic will be posted here : https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...?tid=10276

Minimal map size was quick but larger maps will likely take an hour or two each to run.