Streaming CoM

[jsb]

Alright, finally got to streaming some Caster of Magic. Haven't streamed or recorded anything in around 2 years, so it will be a bit rough round the edges I'm sure, but bare with me. I currently have NO schedule or even an idea for a schedule, just feels like I have to start somewhere again. I am currently living in Sweden, so times will vary between morning, afternoon and evenings here. I will post here whenever I start playing.

I always record my games, so if you live in the US or similar you can (eventually) catch the games on YouTube.

Right, here we go!

https://www.twitch.tv/jsbgame

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8xSnaZktxoldcB_EYYE-Tg

[Seravy]

Amazing, will enjoy this!

Let's see...
-it takes 2x+1 to raise the skill by one, not x+1.
-wow that's a horrible luck, not only is it an island but the only free continent is entirely desert and both enemies got good large areas with great ores and starting adamantium.
-on the other hand wow, 5 nodes for your sprites, that's amazingly good, and there even are several keeps. If only they weren't all in enemy territory but still you managed to get there first so it's nice.
-in fact the AI just always keeps 3 spirits ready per plane and summons more if they are used up or killed. They do know to send the spirit there if the node is open, but they don't know to summon one for it, they just already have one 99% of the time.
-That fortress spike, maybe the fortress lightning hits too hard now? Albeit warlocks have so little health I guess even a weaker bolt would have killed them...or maybe not through all the buffs? Also, the defense the city walls provide helped the sprites out. (disrupt actually isn't a bad spell although not in this particular battle, more when the AI has melee units and moves them to the gate tile so it keeps refilling the tile already destroyed and less 2 less defense bonus - or when you need a hole to be able to get inside.)
(researching Fire Bolt could have been a good insurance to prevent this outcome - you had a massive casting skill but no combat spell to use it)
(oh and not sure why you are using Warlocks for this battle. Priests with their twice as many hit points and healing plus lower cost to produce would work way better, even though their attack strength is less. Warlocks are better suited to fight things that don't shoot back (or bow units with their missile immunity). Nightmares might have been even better. )
-On the other hand, I wonder if wizards with Death and Nature books both going War Bears+Sprites on starting picks instead of Ghouls is the correct move. Sprites are very risky fortress garrisons, especially against other AI but also against the human. Ghouls do a better job at it. However Bear+Sprites give a much better ability to expand for the AI - one flies and the other moves 3 tiles and costs much less per unit. But, no undead created in battles and poor garrisons is a big price to pay for it.
-Maybe summoning circle should be guaranteed to appear for research at the start of the game?
-Shadow grants the unit equipping it a Thrown attack equal to half their melee. Has no effect if the unit already has a thrown/breath/ranged attack so for that hero it's useless but otherwise it can be very powerful. (Ideally it would be best if it could add a Death realm magical melee attack but no such thing exists so have to have normal physical thrown unfortunately)
-Actually, now that it appeared, I realize you should have just pushed research up until Giant Spiders appear since it was your guaranteed pick and you planned on using them extensively, and they are cheap to research. They completely counter Sprites and you had plenty of overland skill to produce plenty of them. Hope they will turn things around.
-Raiders and monsters don't take a detour to avoid attacking units on the way to their intended target, so if you stand between them and the nearest city on a low movement cost tile, you'll get attacked.
-You didn't send a spirit to the node in the middle, where you gathered your spiders. I guess you were that tired. (the spirit that was supposed to go there is the one you accidentally buffed with resist elements and then you never made another)

[crusader.mike]

strange... there is nothing CoM-related in your youtube channel and twitch link shows black screen after pressing play. Am I doing smth wrong?

[Seravy]

I don't see it on Youtube either but I do see it on twitch.

[jsb]

It's up on YT now - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfqvDpuYgZ8

I'm manually uploading the recordings to YT and it takes time to re-process the videos. For some reason, OBS made the audio de-sync so I had to fix that in the recording as well before I could upload it. It usually takes 24h or more for me to get the stream to YT as I am on a terrible ASDL-connection with limited upload. In a few months I should have fiber though, good times ahead.

You can always find the actual stream footage from Twitch under https://www.twitch.tv/jsbgame/videos/all

[jsb]

First of all, I was really zoned out and feel that I played pretty terribly, even though I went with stuff that should have given me a good opening. Had bad luck with the island-start of course, but that's just a part of the game. AI starting locations were totally bonkers and if it's a common occurrence that would explain a little bit of that Myrran-snowballing. I mean, if a player would get an adamantium+gold start it's pretty much GG right?

- I misjudged the Fortress battle pretty badly and also misplayed out of sheer surprise (I could at least have killed another sprite). I was a bit surprised at how much damage the Warlocks took even with Resist elements though.
- I went with Warlocks for a number of reasons:

• I wasn't really expecting the AI to defend with Sprites but with something meatier.
  
• The Warlocks were also intended for dungeons, a Doombolt to the face usually does the trick on monsters that can shrug of other magic attacks.
  
• Wizards guild provides power when I build it (as you notice, the idea was all about maximizing power early).
  
• Also, Warlocks can handle most difficult summons and they blast heroes into orbit, so less chance that she would have pulled a fast one on me I guess.
  
• Another reason is that this is the first Dark Elf game in a couple of years and I simply don't know what's good anymore. Nightmares look interesting, I might transition into those to go along with my spiders.
  

- I totally should have researched Firebolt, don't know what I was thinking, was pretty blank the whole stream TBH.
- The lack of Summoning circle really surprised me - but on the other hand, I did go three-colors = a lot of commons, so ... it can happen, but it did mess with me a little bit early. Also, as a consequence, I just love that the Trireme attacked me on the turn when I let my guard down and loaded my ship with spiders. I was fully aware of the risk, you will notice I avoid doing it a few turns earlier. Worked out anyway thanks to Firebolt, but I just love when AI can feel like they're being intentionally nasty.
- I think I read about Shadow in the documentation, but the effect had a different sounding name when I saw it?
- If I hadn't gotten stuck on the first wizard I think I would have done more research, but seeing that I was loosing more and more resource-generation I felt I needed to push Mana instead. If I had known that Freya would defend with only Sprites, going full Giant spider-stack would have made a lot of sense, yes. Honestly, I don't tend to prioritize research early so it might be an area where I have to consider my strategy more.
- Totally got casting skill formula wrong then, will correct it! No wonder it feels like a lot slower than it should be. I always push casting skill very aggressively anyway, so I usually end up with a decent number in most of my games.

Around the end of the stream I was mentally exhausted. I used to stream daily for 4-5 hours for over a year straight, but that was some time ago it seems. Next time will hopefully be easier, just have to get back in the saddle a bit. I've been generally fatigued this week too, changing time-zone and climate wears on you I guess.

Will try to stream again tomorrow (Saturday). What times are generally good for you? It would be very useful to have the developer available sometime to answer questions (and correct my misconceptions)!

[Seravy]

Well, my sleeping is kinda unpredictable so I'd say ideal is like noon to midnight CET, unless I have to go somewhere that day.
Fortunately twitch allows turning html5 off so none of that lagging/crashing nonsense Youtube forces on people. I already gave up on watching things live there, and resort to downloading the videos after streams are over. It's not fun when you have to restart browser every hour of the stream and miss 2-3 minutes for doing it. (since it crashes due to the player using more than the entire available memory, closing and restarting is slow too...)

tomorrow (Friday)

Wait, isn't today Friday? It's 10am, I think Sweden is the same time zone as mine?

[jsb]

*Saturday (fixed). Notice that I am still compromised huh.

I'll try getting in another 4-5 hours tomorrow and probably Sunday as well, starting around 13:00 CET.

Yeah, haven't tried streaming on YT - but will probably just keep using Twitch in any case. Have had the same problems with YT crashing my browser after binging too many videos, don't really see why this is an issue in the modern world, but probably missing something incredibly technical ;>

[jsb]

Continued my game yesterday - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc0ElHUz9Ew

Won't be able to stream today (Sunday), but will see when I get another opportunity in the week.

[jsb]

Continuing my game right now - haven't had much time available in the week unfortunately.