Submod "Caster of Magic for Windows: Warlord"

[Beorn]

Really want to give this a try, but I have been unable to get it to launch.

I have a Steam installation of Caster for Windows, fully updated.  I downloaded this recent Warlords file, and followed the directions: copied all of the Caster for Windows files into the Warlords file, deleted the spells and units files, and copied all from the download, including the multi.config that is up one level.  When I launch, I get Caster for Windows as the default, and when I select "change game" I get an error message: "Image for selection not found. Proceeding to Default Launcher"

Any chance that something is missing in the file that went up yesterday?  Or am I misunderstanding the directions in some way?

[zitro1987]

Some ideas:

Is your warlord folder named exactly "Master of Magic Caster Windows Warlord" ?

A backup way of running it is going to the warlord folder and running the caster.exe file in there, skipping the launcher and steam altogether.

[Beorn]

A backup way of running it is going to the warlord folder and running the caster.exe file in there, skipping the launcher and steam altogether.

That does it, thanks!

[Beorn]

I've been taking this for a test drive.  (High Elves, Fair difficulty)

Questions:
1) I did not get the option of researching Summoning Circle until the end of the common spell era.  This never happened to me during a very large number of playthroughs with Caster.  Is this a design decision or an oddity of this particular playthrough?  It actually had a rather profound impact on early gameplay.

2) I also got more surprises in encounter locations.  My Magic Spirit's reports on the monsters present seemed more misleading than usual.  Again, I am curious whether this was just the luck of the draw, or a design decision.

3) Ditto with buildings destroyed in battles.  It seemed to me that battles fought outside of the city tiles, even in one case a one round walkover, destroyed large numbers of buildings.  Design decision?

Reactions to obvious differences:

4) Tree of Knowledge taking longer to research and cast strikes me as a big improvement.  Now, it's not just a date to wait for, followed by an almost instantaneous upgrade to the highest military level.  It's an important strategic decision whether/when to devote so many resources to this upgrade.  It makes the early military factions more relevant.  And it makes for interesting spell trading choices, since other wizards want the spell, but do you want them to have it more quickly?

5) Gnoll Marauders and Killer Wasps (especially near Nature nodes!!!) add a lot of interest to the first half of the game.  The latter might be overpowered for a common spell, but it seems to me that Nature should have some dangerous summons at all levels, and this fits the bill.  Maybe if I had been the one with the wasps, it would have made things too easy, though.  One less figure per unit, perhaps?

6) The AI wizards were far less aggressive, at least in this playthrough.  In Caster, my lands are continually overrun with potentially hostile stacks, threatening any soft spots in my defenses.  This seems vastly reduced.  Of course, I am judging based on just one game.  Possibly a fluke, but I think the sweet spot would be about halfway in the middle. 

7) Nature's Witness is a great addition to the game.  Stroke of genius, adding an enormous layer of caring about resources and normal troops.  There is a cost, though.  Stack icons show experience level and magic/mithril weapons, but no clue as to adjusted stats for bonuses from this spell.  That's unfortunate, and adds to micro, but clearly does not outweigh the upside.

[Suppanut]

I've been taking this for a test drive.  (High Elves, Fair difficulty)

Thanks for tests our mod.

Questions:
1) I did not get the option of researching Summoning Circle until the end of the common spell era.  This never happened to me during a very large number of playthroughs with Caster.  Is this a design decision or an oddity of this particular playthrough?  It actually had a rather profound impact on early gameplay.

It could happen if you end up roll random common spells of realm you don't have book with cheap cost. Normally first turn research comprise of cheapest spells + 1 early uncommon (if have). If you roll several cheap spells, they may push out summoning circle and not appear on first turn.

2) I also got more surprises in encounter locations.  My Magic Spirit's reports on the monsters present seemed more misleading than usual.  Again, I am curious whether this was just the luck of the draw, or a design decision.

Misleading? How?

3) Ditto with buildings destroyed in battles.  It seemed to me that battles fought outside of the city tiles, even in one case a one round walkover, destroyed large numbers of buildings.  Design decision?

No. I don't mod building destruction rate. It still stay the same as in CoM II.

Reactions to obvious differences:

4) Tree of Knowledge taking longer to research and cast strikes me as a big improvement.  Now, it's not just a date to wait for, followed by an almost instantaneous upgrade to the highest military level.  It's an important strategic decision whether/when to devote so many resources to this upgrade.  It makes the early military factions more relevant.  And it makes for interesting spell trading choices, since other wizards want the spell, but do you want them to have it more quickly?

No. It is already fast enough as around last uncommon. It is long enough for player to use early game unit before last tier upgrade instead of just rush to final tier. You still could make it a bit faster by have invest on research and then cast it immediately but you could prolong decision to cast if you have something more important to cast or using resource on.

5) Gnoll Marauders and Killer Wasps (especially near Nature nodes!!!) add a lot of interest to the first half of the game.  The latter might be overpowered for a common spell, but it seems to me that Nature should have some dangerous summons at all levels, and this fits the bill.  Maybe if I had been the one with the wasps, it would have made things too easy, though.  One less figure per unit, perhaps?

Wasp is by definition exist to be buffed. it has 9 figures and design to be buffed as such. It hard to find good spot for it. Sorcery pretty much wrack them. But eat out most of early meta garrison. It is something player need to relearn.

6) The AI wizards were far less aggressive, at least in this playthrough.  In Caster, my lands are continually overrun with potentially hostile stacks, threatening any soft spots in my defenses.  This seems vastly reduced.  Of course, I am judging based on just one game.  Possibly a fluke, but I think the sweet spot would be about halfway in the middle.

They are far less aggressive due to everyone get slower due to units are more expensive and terrible monster rampage coming ahead. Most of your early fights tend to not against nearby wizards but against monsters, especially on higher difficulty, you barely hold yourself.

7) Nature's Witness is a great addition to the game.  Stroke of genius, adding an enormous layer of caring about resources and normal troops.  There is a cost, though.  Stack icons show experience level and magic/mithril weapons, but no clue as to adjusted stats for bonuses from this spell.  That's unfortunate, and adds to micro, but clearly does not outweigh the upside.

Thank you for like this spell. Technically this spell does not buff unit in traditional way, it change individual unit base stats upon creation (like how settler of different races created from the same generic unit template). in CoM II, all individual units have their stats store separately apart from their original template. So unit buffed by Nature's Witness are natural, they could not be dispelled (due to, in essence, it is not magic) and effect would not retain on zombie created from it (but create undead still able to retain stats). The same also apply to the change to normal unit from Survival Instinct as you might discovered it further.

[Beorn]

#2 - Misleading in that it says a few X, when it is actually 1-2 of that monster and 7 of a nearly as strong monster.  Uh oh 

#5 - You may have misunderstood, I very much like the way you have Tree of Knowledge set up.  I was not suggesting you change it.

[zitro1987]

Summoning circle: if there is a way to force this one to appear on turn 1 for research (or even start with the spell), we can prevent the unfortunate cases where we can’t access it early

Monster presence reports vs monster distribution: as far as i know, this is not moddable

Building destruction: not modded here, but there are more building prerequisites (no longer can we easily build amplifying towers in undeveloped towns), so that can translate to more buildings destroyed.

Besides those prerequisites, tree of knowledge’s role helps set apart builder races, early vs late military races, and those economy/military ones.

The thing about wasps is the sheer number of counters early on against them when fighting other wizards. But they sure can be useful for treasure hunting ,strong in nature nodes and land linking (counters aside)

AI aggression: besides monster rampage mentioned above, some of it was due to a recent Caster of Magic version update, some of it the different pace of the game in mod, the higher cost of top tier units (enhanced in mod) is particularly part of it as well as AI cheating less with unit upkeep costs. It is kind of a wish becoming reality : i thought the unit clutter was hurting gameplay.

Note: if you hit manual on the launcher (or look for a warlord manual .doc file in folder, you’ll see more explanations)

[Suppanut]

Version 1.3.8 released.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/l6ate5tyi....8.7z/file

Change log.
Unit and Summon Changes:
-Saints, Inquisitors, and all priest-like units cost 20 more to produce.
-Fire Elemental, Earth Elemental, Phantom Beast, Phantom Warrior upkeep reduced by 1
-Ghost Ship loses transport, gains windwalking
-air elemental gain stealth

Spell Changes:
- Evil Presence (+20 cost) – Not only does it prevent units from being recruited with experience or magic weapons, but now also prevents positive recruitment effects introduced by warlord mod, such as effects from Survival Instinct, free disciplines/resist elements, doom mastery and chaos embrace, etc
- Drought (+50 cost / +1 upk) – Now also causes newly recruited units to be malnourished, are debuffed with 1 less melee and 2 less armor.
- Eternal Night (+200 cost / +9 upk) – Now also causes newly recruited range units to be trained less well in ranged combat, reducing permanently range attacks by 2 permanently while Eternal Night is in play. Eternal Night also given 2 unrest instead of 1.
- Spell of Mastery now costs 9,000 with research cost 330,000.

Graphic Changes:
- Summon event graphic for 'Demon' and 'Vampire' updated
- Minor correction of summon event graphic of ‘Coatl”
- Main menu now displays name of mod.

[Suppanut]

Warlord mod version 1.4.0 for CoM2 version 1.4.0 released.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/cga3fdxkh....0.7z/file

Change Log:
Units and summons change:
- Gorgons lose supernatural and summon cost reduce from 360 to 320
- Zombie summon cost increase from 20 to 24 but movement and melee +1
- Wraith summon cost reduce from 300 to 250 but nolonger has create undead ability (rely only on life steal)
- Adjust lair and rampage cost of water elemental, fire elemental, earth elemental, phantom warrior, phantom beast, ethereal knight, boars
- Introduce lesser and greater chaos/gaia/aether lord as rampaging monsters of late game proportion.
- Night Blade now has movement +1 and gain stealth but cost increase from 240 to 270
- Catapult, and ballista's range attack reduce by 1
- Saint cost increase from 120 to 140
- Bug fix: Priest units cost not 120
- Shamans, monks, priests, and saints are now able to walk through other wizard's territory without violation of wizard pact.
- Fix sprite of Cloud giant and Dragon turtles

Spell changes:
- Rare and very rare spells found in lair would appear after 72 and 132 turns after game start on fair difficulty, and reduce by 12 turns for each difficulty level increase.
- Change dark ritual power gain to 8 + 100% religious power

Buildings changes:
- Miner's Guild cost change to 200

Others:
- Update to support engine of CoM2 version 1.4.0
- Update AI production and building behavior
- Bug fix: gold display tag for gold gain from alchemist's guild with philosopher's stone
- Bug fix: research display tag for Nature's Witness
- Bug fix: description display of High Men, Nomad, Orc, Trolls fall off the screen
- Bug fix: Drought not reduce new units' attack and defense
- Power gain/lose from Good/Bad Moon event now +50% and -33% respectively

[Besmarr]

Did the new version (1.4.1) break this mod or am I installing it wrong? When I start a new game and move the mouse through the unit menu the game crashes.