Master of Magic 1.5, temporal codename "Raid" development

[FrancoK]

At the creation of the volcano.
the chance distribution of each ore.
Default is
Iron : 5
Coal : 3
Silver : 3
Gold : 3
Gems : 2
Mithril : 2
Adamant : 2

Was it the same in vanilla? Adam. seems to high, IMO.
Also is the same for the 2 worlds? IIRC Adam. can only be found on Aranus, does this apply here too?

This is vanilla. ( I use 1.40 but this part was unchanged, I checked kyrub's ida files.)
2 out of 20 is not bad, but there is only a 20% chance of anything happening, so overall it's merely a 2% chance in the end.
Raise Volcano does not care about which plane it is.
Ore generation in magic.exe for starting a new game is way more detailed, each ore type can only appear on specific types of terrain. There is none of that here, considering the terrain is always a volcano, that makes sense

You're right.

Y

[FrancoK]

277 - Allow raising volcanoes on hills, mountains and volcanoes

When casting a volcano on an older volcano, the older is destroyed, so it should stop providing 1 mana point/turn to its caster.
Since we can now cast volcano on enemy volcanoes a check who is the volcano owner should be done.

[Seravy]

277 - Allow raising volcanoes on hills, mountains and volcanoes

When casting a volcano on an older volcano, the older is destroyed, so it should stop providing 1 mana point/turn to its caster.
Since we can now cast volcano on enemy volcanoes a check who is the volcano owner should be done.

I tested by casting a volcano over my own and my total power remained the same, so I assumed the erased volcano is no longer providing power. I haven't tested using it on enemy volcanoes, but I it should be working, one map cell can't be owned by two people at the same time. If your test results show something different, let me know.

[FrancoK]

277 - Allow raising volcanoes on hills, mountains and volcanoes

When casting a volcano on an older volcano, the older is destroyed, so it should stop providing 1 mana point/turn to its caster.
Since we can now cast volcano on enemy volcanoes a check who is the volcano owner should be done.

I tested by casting a volcano over my own and my total power remained the same, so I assumed the erased volcano is no longer providing power. I haven't tested using it on enemy volcanoes, but I it should be working, one map cell can't be owned by two people at the same time. If your test results show something different, let me know.

I'll check again.

Meanwhile, here you are in attach the MoM 1.2 Wizards you needed. Do you want other files?

  WIZARDS.zip (Size: 341.61 KB / Downloads: 2)

[Seravy]

277 - Allow raising volcanoes on hills, mountains and volcanoes

When casting a volcano on an older volcano, the older is destroyed, so it should stop providing 1 mana point/turn to its caster.
Since we can now cast volcano on enemy volcanoes a check who is the volcano owner should be done.

I tested by casting a volcano over my own and my total power remained the same, so I assumed the erased volcano is no longer providing power. I haven't tested using it on enemy volcanoes, but I it should be working, one map cell can't be owned by two people at the same time. If your test results show something different, let me know.

I'll check again.

Meanwhile, here you are in attach the MoM 1.2 Wizards you needed. Do you want other files?

Confirmed, 1.2 volcano creation is identical to 1.31.
Chance of new ore is 20% and the bug is the same too.

This ofc tells us nothing except that they didn't fix the bug, and didn't add this ore creation in 1.31, it was merely left unchanged.

[Tiltowait]

All the previous versions of MoM are in a link in this thread. You can see what a contemporary reviewer said about one of the previous versions. Personally I think it's interesting to play v1.1, it shows the game in an earlier state. Here's a list of what people wanted to see change in v1.2. To me, 1.1 didn't feel like playing a game, more like a software simulator.

[Tiltowait]

001 - Monster point table - good, keep it, should go in v1.5
002 - Books to personality/objective - yes
003 - 5th landmass option - Include - will test tiny size
004 - display correct books for 3 realms on default wizard - Include (doesn't change anything but helps modding) - include it, sure
005 - Life+Death wizards - optional - torn on this one. On one hand, the life/death thing is integral to MoM. On the other hand, enabling life and death together is something a new version should do, it would help to bring in new players. There isn't room for a life and death computer wizard, so it'll be something limited to the player, unless the CP rolls well on a high level.
006 - 2 picks Myrran - optional - no
007 - max 10 books - optional - no
008 - no runemaster books needed - optional - OK, sure.
009 - fixed tower placement - + Yes, I think this should have been in the game to begin with.
010 - no crash from failure to place capital - I'm happy about the lack of crash, but unsure about reducing the qualifications for a capital. The capital is hugely important and getting anything but a 20 pop starting spot can be crippling.
011 - no starting builder's hall - optional no
012 - Myrran nodes placed wrong - + yes
013 - Monsters in dungeons amount - + not sure about this one, is it an improvement? Those weak lairs of skeletons are needed for low-level heroes to beat.
014 - No crash from dungeons having to be 2 cells apart on smaller landmass - hummmm....I don't like this one, but I guess it's required for the smaller size. I really don't like that it affects larger landmasses as well, where there is plenty of room to distribute all the features.
015 - Up to 6 primary monsters per dungeon - goes with 013
016 - Monster point to treasure change - + yes
017 - Minimum treasure 118 - yes
018 - Towers not cheating with treasure points - yes
019 - Gold, Mana more available in treasure - + yes
020 - More valuable items in treasure - + (maybe replace 160% modifier with higher random amount) Whoa, this one seems great, but it is a huge change! All treasures increase in value by 60%?! Wow. I like that the treasures in itemmake.exe are finally available (stupid developers stacking it full of expensive items and neglecting the low-level ones) but I'm not sure about increasing ALL treasure values by 60%. Seems Monty Haul to me.
021 - Prisoner treasure cost bug - + yes
022 - Spell treasure unreasonable - Include + no, I don't get enough spells from ruins. Anything that reduces that is bad, and getting very rare spells is cool.
023 - Less "Special" treasure - no
024 - "Special" treasure not always by itself - yes
025 - Treasure distribution weights - + no, I like getting items from lairs
026 - Less neutral towns - + (amount can be different) I like neutral towns, they give the game a lot of flavor. I get the idea that these are only problems on your new tiny size. I have to test it, but small is already pretty small, and most players hate navies, so I'm not sure how many people besides me are going to like tiny and actually play it, so I'm not convinced altering the rest of the game to make tiny fit is a good idea.
027 - New starting relations formula - no
028 - No AI uncommon spell cheat, secondary personality realms - this is two different patches with two different ideas. I like the secondary personality change, but the computer players need a viable summon to play the game. It's ugly but whattayagonnado.
029 - Retort effect on personality - grr, fine, need more pragmatists out there.
030 - Peaceful and Maniacal available to all wizards - no. Why would a death wizard be peaceful? It's not thematic. Life are supposed to be the good guys, they can't be maniacs.
031 - Not always SSs'ra - YES FINALLY
032 - Autosave fix - yes
033 - Shorter combat - optional yes, good
034 - Fortress Lightning - optional not sure about this one. How strong is the lightning?
035 - Diplomacy personality table - no
036 - AI personality to curse chance - yes
037 - Maintenance from unit tables - optional seems to be a straightforward fix, why is it optional?
038 - always 2x buy cost - - optional no
039 - Long town lists - optional yes, this is a mod but it is good
040 - Can make units in full town - yes
041 - Contact with the eliminated wizards - yes
042 - Nature Awareness = Detect Magic bug - yes
043 - Can continue moving - yes!
044 - Planar Seal casting bug - yes
045 - Entangle bug - yes
046 - Greater Alchemy transfers - have to test this one
047 - Gold and Mana above books - have to test this one
048 - Display caster ammo - Not include not include? well ok then.
049 - Wrong amount of scouting displayed - yes
050 - Current Summon Demon display - yes
051 - Current Immunity display - yes
052 - Show save modifiers - yes
053 - Gift of Gods gives good items - yes. that story about the meteor is hilarious.
054 - Failed special value - yes
055 - Life+Death treasure - optional - depends on 005
056 - DIPL event 02 crash fix - yes
057 - Missing spell name in offer - yes
058 - No declare war first on allies - sure why not
059 - More refusal flavor text - definitely
060 - Threaten new formula - yes
061 - End of turn diplomatic shift -

"Warning messages and penalties that discourage building troops in a military game are bad design."

I disagree. The other players are trying to win the game, too. There is no second place, only one wizard can cast the spell of mastery.

That being said, I guess this patch is better altogether.

062 - Missing name in break alliance - yes
063 - Refusal of break alliance penalty - yes
064 - Player proposal reply roll - yes
065 - Peace interest not blocking audiences - yes
066 - AI Peace treaty possible - yes
067 - Longer peace treaties - sure
068 - Diplomatic shift occurred event changes - yes
069 - No sharp modifiers to diplomacy - yes
070 - Reverse HREL on breaking treaty - yes
071 - No global HREL penalty - yeah, fine, whatever
072 - Offer tribute change - yes
073 - More patience with trading - No, I like this one the way it is now. You can offer or trade 3-4 spells, then that's it. Choose carefully, you're not a Megalo-Mart nosing through the displays, you're dealing with a powerful wizard with little time to spare.

074 - more REL bonus from trade - sure why not
075 - Spells not gained in trades bugs - yes
076 - AI War check too rare fix - yes
077 - Fixes player receiving unoffered gold - yes
078 - AI to AI diplomacy fixes - yes
079 - No distance check for AI to AI pacts - I wish this one worked properly, but I guess this fix has to be included.
080 - No instant war to help AI ally - yes
081 - Gold reward message always show up - yes
082 - AI to player diplomacy blocker removal - yes
083 - Lower chance of AI dropping the warning - yes
084 - No nonpeace offers during war fix - yes
085 - More AI to player offers - I don't really understand this one
086 - Text group 4 used when war from threats - yes
087 - AI aggression starting turn - optional No
088 - Peace treaty ignored for AI to AI fix - yes
089 - AI War declaration new formulas - need to playtest this one. It's one of the "big changes" to diplomacy that edges this bugfix towards a mod, but the modding is necessary as diplomacy hardly worked at all.

090 - AI War declaration bug fixes -yes
091 - No excessive safety from treaties - I don't know if I agree with this one. On Easy, it's supposed to be easy. On the other difficulties, if both sides keep to the terms of the treaty, it SHOULD continue. On the other hand, this makes it easier for the player to establish an alliance and then forget about that CP for the rest of the game.

092 - Alliance allows trespassing - yes. I thought this was the case already.
093 - New town warning uses more suitable texts - yes. although it needs to be made clear in the documentation where the player's units can't go.

094 - End of turn "interest" diplomacy variable growth - not sure about what this does, or its effect.
095 - AI to player offers - yes, although this is another one that is more of a mod than a bugfix. I suppose it's unavoidable.
096 - AI broken treaty uses proper text - yes
097 - AI treaty offers, additional gold/spell chance - ditto 095
098 - AI can offer peace fix - yes
099 - Warning consequences roll formula - ditto 095
100 - Peace treaty proposal roll - yes
101 - End of turn Peace interest shift - I suppose...but does war weariness still set in? Even if the CP is winning, eventually all wars should come to an end. Give the player a chance, even if he's losing.

102 - AI casting after defeated bug - yes
103 - Defeat/banish penalty change - yes
104 - AI concede skill limit - cool
105 - No mana for banishing - YES FINALLY this unbalanced the game, all you had to do was knock out one wizard and BAM, your mana problems were solved for the rest of the game. I don't think this effect was documented anywhere. It made things far too easy in the midgame.

106 - Attacking diplomatic effects - ditto 095
107 - Razing outpost ignored bug - aww, I kind of liked this one. Crunching undefended outposts was one of my favorite ways to keep the CP from expanding.

108 - Wind walking prevents attacks bug - Are we sure about this one? I thought wind walking granted flight. You get the little icon and everything.

109 - Combat turn displayed - Cool.
110 - Simultaneous ammo and mana display - cool
111 - Strategic combat fix - yes
112 - Strategic combat damage distribution - again, a mod more than a fix. Have you ever played Warlords? It's possible the strategic combat was meant to work like that game. I've seen the results of this in CoM and the CP gets a lot of damaged units walking around the game board. Is there any mechanism for the CP to heal its units, either by resting in cities or stacking with Healer units?

113 - Healing bug fix - yes
114 - AI "defense rating" formula - not sure what this does
115 - AI "offense rating" formula - yes
116 - AI Life Drain targeting - yes
117 - AI fireball targeting - yes
118 - AI no redundant haste/invisibility - yes
119 - AI no shatter on atk 2 - yes
120 - AI combat curse targeting - yes
121 - AI no possession on Death Immunity - yes
122 - AI no mass effect spell bug - yes
123 - AI warp creature targeting - yes
124 - AI dispel magic targeting - yes
125 - Spell ward counters in combat - yes
126 - AI nonrandom strength Counter Magic - yes
127 - Raise and Animate Dead raises the living bugfix - yes
128 - No fortress discount - I don't understand this one. I want the fortress to keep its 0.5x casting discount.
129 - No demon summon if 9 units - yes
130 - Flying units can stall - haha, this is definitely a mod, but it is a good one. I know Hadriex was quite put-out the first time this happened to him and a flying unit blocked the city gate.

131 - Doom bolt display bug - yes
132 - AI minimum MP to cast - yes
133 - No 2x cost on misc items - yes
134 - Item generation bugs - yes
135 - Avoid item slots 0 - yes
136 - Merging works - yes
137 - Magical bows - optional - sure, leave it in
138 - Ghost unit bug fix 1 - yes
139 - Dispel not removing immunity bug - not sure about this one bugfix vs. mod. isn't dispel a form of magic, which magic immunity should protect against?
140 - Invisibility spell applies ability - yes
141 - Chaos Surge has no effect bug - yes
142 - Bonus to hit merged to display if able - does this fix the Insecticide effect of only showing certain pluses to hit? I remember some were never shown, some items and enchantments never made it to the unit display.
143 - Flight 3 movement - it's not supposed to grant movement 3?
144 - Undead immunities - yes
145 - Berserk no negative defense - yes
146 - Black sleep lose movement types - yes. Does dispelling black sleep restore a unit's movement?
147 - Fantastic unit maintenance - optional - 1x maintainence? What was it before, 1.5x? I'm not sure about this one. I suppose it should be modified, because fantastic units are already less-used and need to be encouraged.
148 - Dead units cannot die - yes
149 - Over9units change - yes

150 - there is a .txt file for this one but it is zero length

151 - AI overland unit value formula - this seems like a large mod, why was it included and what are its effects?

152 - Fix : Throw ignores Weapon immunity - yes
153 - Fix : special attacks have no effect - yes
154 - Fix : Immolation on ranged - Immolation is SUPPOSED to work on ranged attacks?
155 - Fix : Invisible city walls - yes
156 - Fix : Blur - OK I wondered why this one never seemed to have any effect. It's a mild effect, but still.
157 - Ranged attacks cost entire turn - yes
158 - AI combat unit targeting priority - this is for tactical combat, right? So what does "spirit at a node" mean?
159 - Units killed in combat diplomacy fix - yes
160 - Fix : Not involved units can't flee - I don't like this one. Units are aboard the ship, they shouldn't all die when the ship flees. Moreover units lost at sea cannot just swim to shore. Even if they somehow did, they would arrive on land naked and without weapons. Their lives might be saved, but the unit of Swordsmen or whatever would be finished as an organized fighting unit, and this represents the unit's destruction. In most wargames, a destroyed unit doesn't mean deaths of everyone in the group, it means the unit is no longer able to engage in any meaningful combat role.

161 - Fame for 4 units even if 20+ fame - Really? I've gotten tons of fame before from endless combats. If it's true then include it but I could have sworn I've watched my fame increase.
162 - Gold gained for conquest - no
163 - AI Army ranged capacity calculation - yes
164 - AI idle units not ignored in combat ratings - yes
165 - AI combat rating "hopeless" - yes
166 - Trading spell value - yes
167 - No Spell of Mastery transfer - YES I don't know how this was ever included.
168 - Curses diplomatic effect - Eh, fine
169 - Enchantments diplomatic effect - no. these spells make you a bigger threat and the CP is right to be afraid of them.
170 - Found books inconsistent - yes
171 - Spell Binding AI fix - yes
172 - Raise Dead/Animate Dead crash - yes
173 - Animated enemy units not gone at end of combat bug - yes
174 - Warp creature fix/mod - this bug should never come up...who casts it 3 times on the same unit?!? I guess it improves the otherwise crappy spell by making it assured that it will target melee attack first. Include it.
175 - Wrack fix - yes
176 - Call Lightning fix - yes
177 - Call Chaos fix - yes
178 - AI create artifact can make predefined items - yes
179 - More than one AI overland spell - ooh, this is definitely a mod. I'll have to playtest this one for sure.
180 - Archmage antidispel to Runemaster - optional - not sure of the reasoning behind this one
181 - AI combat spellcasting core changes - yes
182 - AI combat spellcasting decision matrix - I don't know what any of this means. I guess include it, if it makes the CP fight better. I guess this is what kyrub meant about the game being much less fun once you understand the internal workings of the computer players.

183 - AI disenchant priority - I don't know if these should be not disenchanted. Both are powerful spells that will change the course of a combat, and need to be gotten rid of ASAP.
184 - AI web priority - yes
185 - AI Iron Skin priority - I guess?
186 - AI Dispel Magic priority - I guess?
187 - AI no pointless guardian wind - yes
188 - AI flight priority - yes
189 - AI Mind Storm category - ditto 182
190 - AI anti-invulnerability spells priority - ditto 182
191 - AI Fireball priority - yes
192 - AI Magic Vortex category - ditto 182
193 - AI Flame Strike, Prayer priority - ditto 182
194 - AI Warp Reality priority - ditto 182
195 - AI Healing priority - ditto 182
196 - AI Invulnerability priority - ditto 182
197 - AI Berserk, Life Drain priority - ditto 182
198 - AI Death Spell priority - yes
199 - AI Animate Dead priority - ditto 182
200 - AI Disenchant priority 2 - ditto 182
201 - AI entangle priority - ditto 182
202 - AI Counter Magic priority - yes
203 - AI Blur priority - yes
204 - AI Call Chaos priority - yes
205 - AI Dispel Evil priority - yes
206 - AI Lionheart priority - yes
207 - AI Dispel Magic - yes
208 - AI combat unit value formula - ditto 182
209 - Debug information - optional - no
210 - Ghost building bug - yes
211 - Production carryover - mod, not a fix. Don't include.
212 - Improved Grand Vizier - nobody uses this, so why not include it.
213 - Population carryover - yes
214 - Hero chance fix - yes
215 - Death units can heal - optional - no
216 - Ghost unit bug fix 2 - yes
217 - AI unit dismiss change - I'm not sure about this one. On one hand it's good to get rid of useless units, on the other hand the food limit is there for a reason, to keep armies to a manageable size instead of sprawling everywhere. You want bigger armies, get more farmers.

218 - Evil Presence works - yes
219 - AI Evil Presence targeting - needs testing
220 - Negative growth impossible bug - yes
221 - Astrologer total Power - yes
222 - Astrologer total Army - yes
223 - AI reduces peace counter twice - yes
224 - AI power distribution - yes
225 - AI alchemy decision - yes
226 - AI alchemy bug - yes
227 - AI no disband on stasis - yes
228 - AI research selection - yes
229 - AI overland spellselection - yes, but needs playtesting
230 - AI less disjunction - Some of these are good, but others not. Spells like Crusade need to be disjuncted.
231 - AI casts already cast enchantments bug - yes
232 - AI curse priorities - yes
233 - AI no move fortress - does this not work or something? I've never seen this spell cast, honestly.
234 - AI Spell Binding is a disjunction spell - yes
235 - AI Flying Fortress targeting fix - yes
236 - AI less random warding - yes
237 - AI Time Stop cancelling decision - yes
238 - AI disjunction bug fix - ditto 182
239 - AI wizard curses no effect bug - yes
240 - AI can buy immediately - needs playtesting, I'm not sure how to test it though. I guess we'd know if the CPs go bankrupt in the early part of the game?
241 - AI buy decisions - Buy everything? All the time? This sounds like a big mod.
242 - AI optimal stack size - yes
243 - AI check for defenders needed every turn - yes
244 - AI split patrolling stack - big mod, but ever since I found out that units on a node will never move, it kind of kills the game. I think this is required.

245 - AI defenders needed amounts - yes
246 - AI mark targets on map - yes
247 - AI weak defense detection - yes, too many times i have seen CP stacks walk right past my undefended or under-defended cities.
248 - AI Time Stop don't disband all summoned units - yes
249 - AI splitting stack unit value fix - ditto 182
250 - AI settlers use - yes
251 - Miner's Guild fix - yes
252 - Peaceful no hostility - Hmm...sounds like a mod. Peaceful and Lawful doesn't mean wimpy. It's just a tendency.
253 - Evil presence not shown on Cathedral fix - yes
254 - Anti-stall AI tactic - evil, I like it.
255 - Bugfix : Confusion, control not returned at end of turn - yes
256 - AI don't target units temporarily switching sides with Dispel - yes
257 - required for 257 - should say required for 258
258 - Combat AI spell priorities fine tuning - ditto 182
259 - Allied enchantments don't add to "disjunction needed" priority for AI - yes
260 - Allied enchantments are not targeted by disjunction for the AI - yes
261 - Invulnerability can be dispelled - yes
262 - Unit moves randomly when confused effect not ignored by AI - yes
263 - AI, units move randomly if no valid melee target (anti-invisibility tactic) - yes, I like this one
264 - Possible to find prisoners with a full stack, hero will get pushed to nearest free square - I don't know if I like this one.
265 - AI ship carry capacity fix - yes
266 - AI ship carry capacity fix 2 - yes
267 - AI 100% mana when Time Stop casting - yes
268 - AI alchemy, always convert gold to mana if over 24000 gold - yes
269 - Spell Binding cannot fail - yes
270 - fix : Create Artifact base cost (used by Suppress Magic) is wrong - yes
271 - AI won't consider uncontancted players as valid targets for overland curses - yes
272 - Depletion and New Minerals work - yes
273 - Depletion and New Minerals will be postponed if no valid target is found at time of execution - yes

This took me hours to do, spread over many days. All this reminded me of my old career in IT, and why I quit that industry in the first place. Now I need to actually apply the patches and try out the game.

Seravy, this is a ton of work you have done. I'm impressed. It took me hours to read, it must have taken dozens of hours to write.

[Seravy]

013 - Monsters in dungeons amount - + not sure about this one, is it an improvement? Those weak lairs of skeletons are needed for low-level heroes to beat.

The numbers are in the file. Weak Arcanus lairs in particular select from a range of 20-600 instead of 10-300.
In original that meant, for example, 3 sprites or nagas at max, now enough for up to 6. 3 Ghouls, now enough for up to 7. etc.
Ofc it might use one medium tier unit instead if it rolls a higher value, but only one of those is usually easy to defeat.

The point of this change is to
-Cut down on lairs with no monsters and treasure inside in the weak category
-And to have enough monsters to actually get valuable stuff from strong ones.

015 - Up to 6 primary monsters per dungeon - goes with 013

This is mostly meant to make places a bit more interesting, in the original "Many" meant always exactly 4 as that was both the minimum to add the word, and the cap on the monsters.

020 - More valuable items in treasure - + (maybe replace 160% modifier with higher random amount) Whoa, this one seems great, but it is a huge change! All treasures increase in value by 60%?! Wow. I like that the treasures in itemmake.exe are finally available (stupid developers stacking it full of expensive items and neglecting the low-level ones) but I'm not sure about increasing ALL treasure values by 60%. Seems Monty Haul to me.

The logic in this is if you melt down the item you get 50% of the value, so 160->80%.
You actually need a hero, with an appropriate slot, and with the need for the abilities on the item, to be able to use the item, so if the value was only 100%, equal to the other stuff you can always use, it wouldn't be very good in my opinion.

026 - Less neutral towns - + (amount can be different) I like neutral towns, they give the game a lot of flavor. I get the idea that these are only problems on your new tiny size. I have to test it, but small is already pretty small, and most players hate navies, so I'm not sure how many people besides me are going to like tiny and actually play it, so I'm not convinced altering the rest of the game to make tiny fit is a good idea.

Actually this wasn't due to the small and tiny land. This was because it didn't matter what race I started with, everything was full of neutral towns and I couldn't use settlers to use my race because there was no room left anywhere. On normal and large land, even. Neutral towns are fine, I like them too, but when they take up 75% of the available land, that's no longer fun.

027 - New starting relations formula - no

The original makes Death useless in diplomacy, your starting values are so low everyone will declare war as soon as they can. Including other Death wizards.

034 - Fortress Lightning - optional not sure about this one. How strong is the lightning?

it's based on the casting skill, I think it goes from strength 10 (no skill) to 32 (180+ skill).

037 - Maintenance from unit tables - optional seems to be a straightforward fix, why is it optional?

It doesn't update the tables themselves, just enables using them, and they might contain outdated data. One tester reported the Chosen having 0 maintenance in the tables.

073 - More patience with trading - No, I like this one the way it is now. You can offer or trade 3-4 spells, then that's it. Choose carefully, you're not a Megalo-Mart nosing through the displays, you're dealing with a powerful wizard with little time to spare.

Don't forget that this gives a penalty to Treaty patience too. Unless you think it's fair to wait an extra 6-12 turns on proposing a wizard's pact for every trade, 2 more if it improved the relations?

Every trade is -30-random(40) which is a lot, if it was maxed out, you still only have 200 points to lose before they end the audience. Also, patience grows back slower in the other patches if I remember well.

085 - More AI to player offers - I don't really understand this one

Short version : Instead of once every 100 turns, the AI checks if they want to offer something to the player every 7 turns. Also fixes bug "AI can never make an offer or remove the first warning sent flag if it was set."

101 - End of turn Peace interest shift - I suppose...but does war weariness still set in? Even if the CP is winning, eventually all wars should come to an end. Give the player a chance, even if he's losing.

If the total army strength is in the 75-125% range compared to the AI, Peace interest is going up every turn.
The player can hasten the process by offering tributes.
If the player is considerably weaker than the AI, peace interest will be going down every turn, in this case it's difficult to make a peace, although not entirely impossible, you would need many tributes. Between 50-75% army strength, this is a slow decrease, but if the army of the player is less than half of the AI, the decline is faster.
In either case, killing the AI's troops in an attack you started reduces their peace interest, so it's better to stay on the defense.
Stuff that grants positive diplomacy points also helps, in particular attacking someone else that wizard is at war with, or casting Aura of Majesty.
Wars aren't a thing that just comes and goes (well it was in the buggy old system), it's a serious thing, and it's better to prevent it than to try backing out of one. Peace would be somewhat pointless if the AI is winning, as they would most likely declare war again when the Peace treaty expires. Building up troops to make sure they don't want to declare war is the way to go, and in that way they will accept or offer peace, too.

108 - Wind walking prevents attacks bug - Are we sure about this one? I thought wind walking granted flight. You get the little icon and everything.

Yes, sure. It is only supposed to grant flight in overland, also there have been plenty of posts about this. In fact, Wind Walking does not grant actual flight, it's just preventing the human player from targeting the unit with an attack, and has no effects on auto or AI, or if the windwalking isn't from the spell.

I've seen the results of this in CoM and the CP gets a lot of damaged units walking around the game board. Is there any mechanism for the CP to heal its units, either by resting in cities or stacking with Healer units

Nope, but they do seem to build lots of shamans so the chances of having one is good. The damage is considered when deciding on an attack, though, it reduces the total strength of the army. So they won't use the damaged stack on strong targets until it is healed.

114 - AI "defense rating" formula - not sure what this does

Changes how the AI calculates to total power of the unit for decisions, this part is for the def and health parameters.
New formula is 4*(def+4)*(total health remaining) if I remember correctly.
Original was probably the sum of the two or something similarly lame.

128 - No fortress discount - I don't understand this one. I want the fortress to keep its 0.5x casting discount.

If you have 16384 or more mana, the discount causes an overflow and the game treats your mana as negative. In other words you can't cast spells at all when at your fortress. Removing the discount eliminates the root of this problem.
I believe this bug also affects the AI, but that might have been fixed in insecticide.

130 - Flying units can stall - haha, this is definitely a mod, but it is a good one. I know Hadriex was quite put-out the first time this happened to him and a flying unit blocked the city gate.

Funny thing is, that happened in 1.31. The AI had a Firewall in place, and it's coded not to attack outside (as damage is only done if the enemy is attacking into it, not the other way).

139 - Dispel not removing immunity bug - not sure about this one bugfix vs. mod. isn't dispel a form of magic, which magic immunity should protect against?

This isn't about Magic Immunty but all of them. Removing Guardian Wind leaves a unit with Missiles Immunity without the Guardian Wind enchantment. Same for True Sight leaving the Illusions Immunity, and yes, Magic Immunity does it too, as well as Immolation.
Whether Magic Immunity should protect against dispelling or not is a different question but I think what the game wanted to achieve is obvious : Spell Lock prevents dispelling, Magic Immunity prevents hurting the unit.

142 - Bonus to hit merged to display if able - does this fix the Insecticide effect of only showing certain pluses to hit? I remember some were never shown, some items and enchantments never made it to the unit display.

Yes but only where possible. Units with a secondary attack type your equipped item does not apply to, will still not show the bonus. Like a Sword on a guy with Thrown. In other words, if the bonus is not visible, the unit has at least one type of attack the bonus is not relevant for.

143 - Flight 3 movement - it's not supposed to grant movement 3?

Yes it should but it only did 2 in combat.

146 - Black sleep lose movement types - yes. Does dispelling black sleep restore a unit's movement?

Haven't tested but it should, please test.

147 - Fantastic unit maintenance - optional - 1x maintainence? What was it before, 1.5x?

Yes.

151 - AI overland unit value formula - this seems like a large mod, why was it included and what are its effects?

Most of the new diplomacy is based the total military power of players, and this where it is calculated.
Also, this is what the AI bases decisions on what to attack, lairs, cities, everything.
The intended effect is to have the AI understand the relative strength of units better.
a 10/10/10 unit is not half as effective as a 20/20/20 one, which the original formula would show. The actual effectiveness in combat better approximated by (attack*defense) than (attack+defense).

154 - Fix : Immolation on ranged - Immolation is SUPPOSED to work on ranged attacks?

No I don't think so. This fix make it not work on them, but by default it worked.

...gonna go eat something, will read the second half soon.

[Tiltowait]

026 - Less neutral towns - + (amount can be different) I like neutral towns, they give the game a lot of flavor. I get the idea that these are only problems on your new tiny size. I have to test it, but small is already pretty small, and most players hate navies, so I'm not sure how many people besides me are going to like tiny and actually play it, so I'm not convinced altering the rest of the game to make tiny fit is a good idea.

Actually this wasn't due to the small and tiny land. This was because it didn't matter what race I started with, everything was full of neutral towns and I couldn't use settlers to use my race because there was no room left anywhere. On normal and large land, even. Neutral towns are fine, I like them too, but when they take up 75% of the available land, that's no longer fun.

Really? I've never had this problem. Particularly on small land, there are hardly any neutral towns at all.

027 - New starting relations formula - no

The original makes Death useless in diplomacy, your starting values are so low everyone will declare war as soon as they can. Including other Death wizards.

So, maybe I'm not understanding this correctly. Death wizards are...death. They want everyone dead. Why would anyone like them? Death isn't just another random faction, they're death. And why would two death wizrards like each other? Neither of them want the other to win.

Fiend 1: Don't be silly, why would we want the lich to win?
Imp: Because we're evil?
Fiend 2: And that makes us all one big happy family? Screw that!
— The Order of the Stick

034 - Fortress Lightning - optional not sure about this one. How strong is the lightning?

it's based on the casting skill, I think it goes from strength 10 (no skill) to 32 (180+ skill).

Needs to be documented...but where?

073 - More patience with trading - No, I like this one the way it is now. You can offer or trade 3-4 spells, then that's it. Choose carefully, you're not a Megalo-Mart nosing through the displays, you're dealing with a powerful wizard with little time to spare.

Don't forget that this gives a penalty to Treaty patience too. Unless you think it's fair to wait an extra 6-12 turns on proposing a wizard's pact for every trade, 2 more if it improved the relations?

Every trade is -30-random(40) which is a lot, if it was maxed out, you still only have 200 points to lose before they end the audience. Also, patience grows back slower in the other patches if I remember well.

I don't see the problem...diplomacy should be slow. These are busy wizards, they shouldn't be available to the player whenever the player wants.

101 - End of turn Peace interest shift - I suppose...but does war weariness still set in? Even if the CP is winning, eventually all wars should come to an end. Give the player a chance, even if he's losing.

If the total army strength is in the 75-125% range compared to the AI, Peace interest is going up every turn.
The player can hasten the process by offering tributes.
If the player is considerably weaker than the AI, peace interest will be going down every turn, in this case it's difficult to make a peace, although not entirely impossible, you would need many tributes. Between 50-75% army strength, this is a slow decrease, but if the army of the player is less than half of the AI, the decline is faster.
In either case, killing the AI's troops in an attack you started reduces their peace interest, so it's better to stay on the defense.
Stuff that grants positive diplomacy points also helps, in particular attacking someone else that wizard is at war with, or casting Aura of Majesty.
Wars aren't a thing that just comes and goes (well it was in the buggy old system), it's a serious thing, and it's better to prevent it than to try backing out of one. Peace would be somewhat pointless if the AI is winning, as they would most likely declare war again when the Peace treaty expires. Building up troops to make sure they don't want to declare war is the way to go, and in that way they will accept or offer peace, too.

All of this needs to be thoroughly documented. I just seems, and I still haven't tested it, but it seems like wars, once started, will go on indefinitely. Master of Orion's wars started, one of you seized a planet or two, and then the war was over.

128 - No fortress discount - I don't understand this one. I want the fortress to keep its 0.5x casting discount.

If you have 16384 or more mana, the discount causes an overflow and the game treats your mana as negative. In other words you can't cast spells at all when at your fortress. Removing the discount eliminates the root of this problem.
I believe this bug also affects the AI, but that might have been fixed in insecticide.

So...no more 0.5x discount at your fortress? WTF? How are you supposed to have an advantage while defending yourself? The lightning bolts? Not sufficient. I'd support a mana cap at 16k before I'd support not having an advantage in your own fortress.

[Seravy]

Needs to be documented...but where?

The actual formula being used is in CoM's docs, as this is a copy of that code, it does the same thing.
I don't think I'll do an update to the help texts in the game (there are a million problems everywhere and I can't do copy from CoM for this one, but if someone does, they can include it in the help text of the Fortress itself (that's what CoM does).

I don't see the problem...diplomacy should be slow. These are busy wizards, they shouldn't be available to the player whenever the player wants.

Well, I guess the original game is slow enough for that.
Still, losing extra patience for trades that benefit the AI and earn a +REL shift is just...wrong.

All of this needs to be thoroughly documented. I just seems, and I still haven't tested it, but it seems like wars, once started, will go on indefinitely. Master of Orion's wars started, one of you seized a planet or two, and then the war was over.

The player can keep the war going as long as it's beneficial to them. I don't see why the AI shouldn't do the same. If the AI is intentionally holding back, that's not fun. As long as the player builds proper defenses, prolonged war should not be a problem. In fact, the attacker will suffer losses and eventually their army will not be strong enough to still want the war going.

So...no more 0.5x discount at your fortress? WTF? How are you supposed to have an advantage while defending yourself? The lightning bolts? Not sufficient. I'd support a mana cap at 16k before I'd support not having an advantage in your own fortress.

To be honest, the 0.5x did not give much of an advantage. It's only for mana, not for skill so you can still cast the same amount of spells per battle. Yes it costs less mana which is nice, but it's not deciding the battle (unless you were that low on mana)
On the other hand, not being able to cast spells at all due to the bug, now that can cost the game.
Either way, the file will be optional, so you don't need to use if you prefer the bug.
I hope I'll eventually have time to find a way to fix the bug properly, but there is too much to do.

158 - AI combat unit targeting priority - this is for tactical combat, right? So what does "spirit at a node" mean?

If there is a unit with the meld ability in a battle at a node, that unit is going to be preferred as a target. This is to kill spirits before they have a chance to meld.

Units are aboard the ship, they shouldn't all die when the ship flees.

That's what the patch does. The default behavior is that all units in the ship die when fleeing, this patch lets them flee normally.

Moreover units lost at sea cannot just swim to shore. Even if they somehow did, they would arrive on land naked and without weapons.

Then instead, assume they were on the shore to begin with, they left the ships when they saw the enemy coming. Or idk. Units not involved in battle either always count as fleeing, or always as dead, regardless of the player pressing the "flee" button or losing the battle, at least until I find out a way to separate the cases.

161 - Fame for 4 units even if 20+ fame - Really? I've gotten tons of fame before from endless combats. If it's true then include it but I could have sworn I've watched my fame increase.

Actually no, this was my mistake.

169 - Enchantments diplomatic effect - no. these spells make you a bigger threat and the CP is right to be afraid of them.

Afraid, maybe. Send you warnings every turn, break treaties, and declare war? No, don't think so.
I believe those should be decided based on the actual military power and relations you have (after the spell is in effect) and not purely based on the presence of the spell.
Spells that do cause actual harm, like Armageddon are a different story, this kind of behavior is fair for them.
At the very least, we don't want to see this pattern, do we?

AI : You're such a nice guy, can we be allies?
Player : ok.
AI : Hey, I'm at war with X and really need help, please declare war on them
Player : ok.
Player prepares for war with X, casts Crusade to stand a chance, as X is too powerful otherwise.
AI : Cancel your Crusade or I'll have to break the Alliance.
Player : Can't do that, X would kill me.
Alliance is broken, AI declares war on the player. Player can't handle fighting X and his ex-ally at the same time, loses the game anyway.

Besides, I don't see how a Doom Mastery or similar is any greater threat than other forms of military power, like, say, 9 hammerhands or 2 sky drakes, or some good high level heroes.
This makes casting spells an inferior form of boosting military, which is a very bad idea for a game where Magic is supposed to be the main feature.

230 - AI less disjunction - Some of these are good, but others not. Spells like Crusade need to be disjuncted.

Yes, but by all 4 other AI players at the same time? They each decide on using it independently.
The priorities are cumulative, too, 3-4 enchantments in play total (including ones owned by the other 3 AI!) and everyone will only cast disjunctions (or recast their lose enchantments).
In the end, summoning, buffing and all other categories suffer as enchantments and disjunctions hog all the mana and casting power.
Maybe Crusade can get a bit higher priority than 25, it's really broken in the default leveling system. The rest are not high enough threat to go over 25.

233 - AI no move fortress - does this not work or something? I've never seen this spell cast, honestly.

It works, but this is the prime example of a spell that should not be cast without a good reason.
The AI does not consider anything, if the random generator says "Move Fortress", it'll be done. Even if the only other valid target is a klackon town with 2 spearmen defending it.
As the AI maintains the strongest garrison in the fortress city, moving it is bad 99% of the time.

240 - AI can buy immediately - needs playtesting, I'm not sure how to test it though. I guess we'd know if the CPs go bankrupt in the early part of the game?

Don't think you can test this but it's a really simple change so it should work without problems. It just removes the "if production done =0 skip" condition, it doesn't make the AI automatically buy things, only if they would otherwise do it.

241 - AI buy decisions - Buy everything? All the time? This sounds like a big mod.

Not really. It'll only buy if having too much money, or the thing being produced is very cheap. Or if it's a Paladin or Alchemist Guild as those two are probably the best things you can spend your gold on in the entire game.

252 - Peaceful no hostility - Hmm...sounds like a mod. Peaceful and Lawful doesn't mean wimpy. It's just a tendency.

Declaration of War is done the same way as other personalities (albeit at a higher positive modifier).
What this does is, it stops them from attacking when not being at war, which other wizards can do.
They are still able to do it after you attack their units, but not if they would be the first to do so.

Edit : Uploaded 5 new files (these are not yet tested, I had no time to play yet today)