Let's discuss score modifiers

[Anskiy]

In the "Retorts and books you can find in a given game" thread, zitro1987 brought up a pretty good point:

Yes, the score modifiers generally rub me off the wrong way, as if a different rule not optimized for AI deserves having your expert game give you easy-normal scores or worse. Even land size tweaks were absurdly punishing in cost modifiers and the tree of knowledge change honestly doesn’t feel like it hurts the AI much, if at all, deserving maybe 0.8X or 0.9X

A rule change that is not far different from changing mineral frequency or node power shouldn’t make you feel like you played on easy. Maybe a bunch of combined could be like playing on 1 or even 2 difficulties below, and should be treated as such.

I think it's worth discussing here which score modifiers feel off and should be adjusted. I don't have many strong opinions, but I definitely think Tree Mastery is overtly punished, since the AI is capable of building up Armorer's Guild/Fantastic Stable units fast with that option enabled, essentially negating your advantage completely. That, and the quality of those units is too variable to reasonably judge their impact. After all, Hordes(without buffing) are not as good as Paladins, who are not as good as Elven Lords. And rushing an uncommon summon like Water Elemental, Giant Spiders, Gargoyles etc tends to beat rushing these units, and they are often more reliable to get and more effective even without putting good buffs on Armorer's Guild units. Also, given how the game is structured, players are forced to spam tons of Fighter's Guild/Wizard's Guild units anyway to compete with the AI's spam, lowering the relevance of Armorer's Guild/Fantastic Stable units even further.

[Seravy]

I believe the land options were already adjusted in 1.2 but I'm open to more suggestions.
However, it's worth mentioning in 1.2 it's also possible to edit the value in the appropriate INI file so I will only make changes on those where there is a general consensus on which direction it needs to be changed.

Changing the modifier for Tree Mastery makes sense. While it's still possible to abuse the option and banish a few wizards early on by simply buying the buildings from treasure money on turn 10-20, this was only relevant when the maximal player count was 4.
Banishing 2-3 wizards out of 13 at the price of having no later strategy beyond "oh look I have 2 mega buffed <unit name>" is nowhere near as much of an advantage as doing that out of 4 wizards.
As score is automatically lower in fewer player count games, that is already good enough to handle that case.

(tho this also kinda implies Tree of Mastery as a whole isn't really necessary anymore. Still, tying unit progress to research kinda makes sense so might as well keep that feature.)

[Suppanut]

I think many score modifier is not quite match with reality of the game. World Equalizer does not make game any easier and it also create competitive environment on opposite plane which make them more stronger due to competitive environment and bigger number of cities (they would take cities from weaker wizards, so survive wizards on opposite plane would stronger than normal in maximal map size 14 wizards).

Actually, I think so often that score modifier does not follow difficulty in general due to condition of difficulty depending on other factors involve such as map size and number of wizards. If number of wizard is low, world equalizer would make game easier as score modifier imply, but if number of wizard is high, it may give different effect entriely.

I would prefer Tree of Knowledge's effect modable and could change which buildings could have this spell as requirement (or maybe other spell to unlock buildings in multi-step). I also agree that with ability for ai to complete building faster than player, unless player is skilled in game enough to know how to rush building, tree mastery tend to make thing worse for player rather than opposite, especially in game with high number of wizards.

[zitro1987]

Game size score modifier does not make a lot of sense - small size is 0.86X -> normal size is a large 1.4X -> huge size is lower at 1.34X

*Sandbox Mode Score: OK currently 0.4x. DISAGREE. Recommend 0.5x. I understand that having war only at your terms put you at a strong competitive advantage on higher difficulties, but expert with this is harder than normal without by a large degree.
*Leave me Alone: OK currently 0.7x, probably 0.75x is more accurate but that is insignificant.
*Smart Familiar. DISAGREE currently 0.8x, recommend 0.9x. The predictor is not too reliable and this is a standard feature in most modern games. sacrificing spearmen, earth lore, or even save-scumming resolve it. It is a huge quality of life for new players and should not be this punishing. The multiplier on higher difficulties (not new players) can impact the score almost as much as a difficulty change. Too excessive
*Targeting Aid. DISAGREE currently 0.9x, recommend 0.95x. This is merely a quality of life feature that could be prevented by unit reading.
*Everything Nice. DISAGREE currently 0.6x, recommend 0.9x. You are left out of some incredibly useful spells best used by player (e.g. call the void) while the opponent AI might be better off casting other spells. Keep in mind that an AI could be casting these spells against other AIs, not just to player instead of using the casting skill for arguably better choices. Reducing score to more than 1 difficulty levels for biased perception is not good design.
*Easy Lairs. DISAGREE currently 0.75x recommend 0.9x. Again, this is merely a rule change and players sometimes benefit from more difficult lairs.
*Dumb Neutrals. Currently 0.85x OK - A bit more than quality of life or convenience - it can help you win otherwise unattainable lairs
*Order Please. Currently 1x OK (maybe 0.9 or 0.95 might also be ok, as chaotic wizards can wreck your plans a bit more than 'everything nice').
*Automatic Combat. Currently 1x OK
*Undeveloped Start. Currently 0.7x DISAGREE. Recommend 1.0x. This is merely a rule change that may or may not help player depending on race and wizard set up and can easily grant AI wizards more snowballing opportunities.
*World Equilizer. Currently 0.5x DISAGREE. Recommend 0.7x. Harsh in that it mostly impacts the later game difficulty and is in theory fairly similar to 'Race to the Unknown' at 0.75x
*Race to the Unknown. Currently 0.75x OK
*I am the Boss. Currently 0.3x DISAGREE but not too familiar with this. I know it makes game far easier, but to the point of normal with it being equal to Master?
*Plane of Earth. Currently 0.5x DISAGREE - at the very least make it comparable to the game size score ratios, whichever that may be (I think this was addressed in version 1.2)
*No Trading. Currently 1.1x DISAGREE. Recommend 1.2X. In most cases, this is a major disadvantage. Giving a spell to AI that poses little threat to gain a free spell is an important tool to success and hardly backfires with AI trading the spell you gave.
*Against the World 2.0x. The problem here is that the score should be higher the more players are present. 2.0x is reasonable in a typical game vs 4 wizards, a bit low vs 6 wizards (what I consider the perfect # of opponents), incredibly low against 13 wizards, which for some reason players here seem to gravitate towards.
*Monsters Gone Wild 1.35x. Disagree. Recommend 1.25x - This is another 'rule change' that a smart player could use it to their advantage, especially with undead creation. AI opponents may fall prey to these stronger neutral stacks. I agree in general it puts player at a disadvantage, but 1.35x implies as much as a difficulty level.
*Disconnected 0.95x. OK
*No Overlap 1x. DISAGREE - I think this was however addressed for version 1.2, recommend around 0.75-0.8
*Continential Lord 0.85x. probably ok, but you are more at risk of having a wizard share an island with your capital city. Recommend 0.9x as a kind of rule change.
*Tree of Mastery 0.6x. DISAGREE. Recommend 1x. AI which often delays armorer's guild even after casting this spell, getting too comfortable for a while building mid-tier units. Since the option indicates that AI will now emphasize building armorer's guild and fantastic stables early, this has high risk of making game harder honestly.

[Suppanut]

I don't agree with Zitro on world equalizer, it may make game easier if starting enemy is low, but in higher number of opponent (13), world equalizer would make it harder for player to have foothold on other plane due to most of those area would already have been occupied and there would lead to some of more powerful wizard which take over enemy territory into bigger dominion than standard 3 wizards on other plane (in 13 wizards game).