Master of Magic 1.5, temporal codename "Raid" development

[Seravy]

I meant starting conditions like size, spellbooks, retorts, etc. Everything that happens before you can play.

Whichever you prefer, really. Or whichever you need to for the file(s) you are testing.

Next one :
273 - Depletion and New Minerals will be postponed if no valid target is found at time of execution

[FrancoK]

Never seen it happening in years of playing, not sure it can be fixed.

I thought that's because the chance of finding a mineral vein (or suitable place for one) on first try is simply too low and the event
Why did people say they had this event, just extremely rarely? With this code, they are impossible to get, ever!

In effects I never get them.

New ores possible to get seem to be 2,4,5,6, and 7, so Coal, Gold, Gems, Mithril, Adamantium, but no Quork, Crysx, Coal or Silver...
Do we want to keep this limitation?
Oh and land type has to be 4 or 5, if I had to guess, Mountain or Hills?

Fine for me.

...new file :
272 - Depletion and New Minerals work

Wow! So quick!

[FrancoK]

Ehhh, now this is weird coding if I ever saw one. At the time the Event is queued up to happen, it looks for a valid target. Then does not save the target found, except for the player's ID, and when the event actually happens, looks for a target again. So there is a chance to get the event and THEN fail to target anything with it. But in this case the game will go ahead and generate an effect anyway to an unset memory address...
Did they seriously think a RANDOM target will be the same one if they call the procedure twice?
This thing definitely needs a check to drop the event if no target is found the second time.

Can you show anyway a popup or something so we know the event happened?
Showing the map where it happened would be great and (for beta only) a way to say it did noy work (like no suitable tile).

[FrancoK]

W041
It never happen to me and I would like to see (not contact, of course) the defeated wizards stats.
Do you think it is possible, as a mod, without corrupting the game?


W043
I suppose it was "engineered" to let AI stacks stay together, however it is a bug, let's see what happens to AI.


W045
The description in the manual says the spell slows all units by 1, regardless flying or corporeal status.
The help text is for the old version and needs to be fixed.


W049
So did you augmented the vision or changed the description?


W053
There was a long debate since the same code was used to:
Gift for gods
Merchant offers
AI item build
Player item build
So was not easy to change it.
Can i ask what solution did you implement?


W102
Yep, it happened to me SOM casted by nobody.
BTW, there is a way (hacking of course) to bring back a dead wizard?


W108
In effects the manual clarifies the buffed unit flies (with 3 movement points), but all the other unit carried fly only outside a combat. If the spell/item/hero acts otherwise, that is the bug.


W111
I prefer AI attacks units based on defense (easier unit goes first, even if it is my beloved champion).
With same defense, more expensive units should be attacked first (enemy must spend more to rebuild them).


W125
What is "reserve space for var_1E"?


W127
Also works for windwalked carried units?


W128
Another workaround is to cap mana at 15000.
My best guess is somewhere computer checks AvailableMana/DistanceCost and if the battle is in the fortress (0.5 distance multiplier) and mana more than 16383 it overflows.
I prefer the cap, because the discount can always be useful, even when you begin, while having more than 15000 can be useful only after you are really powerful.


W129
Usually with 2 demon lord and 7 smaller units the DLs shoot, do not summon demons, IIRC.


W134
see W053.


W136
I suppose the merging not working is on items, the one on units works fine.
I did not understand if you fixed it on items or removed it.


W138
Any idea why happens? If the unit survives, can it heal normaly?


W139 (the inside txt says 138)
It also works for Guardian Wind I suppose.
Should Magic Immunity prevent dispel or, at least, change the %?
If the unit is not "normal" (magic weapon, experience, Black Channel, Demon skin armor, etc.) will it lose all special boni?
If some spells are dispelled and other aren't (i.e. Giant Strenght dispelled, but Iron Armor not) will the remaining spell be calculated?


W145
-20 could be to avoid any shield buff to be used.


W146
Not sure what is the Note : Contains deactivated code of the "Guardian" retort mod because both used the same space.


W148
Sometime AI recalls an hero, then it raise it. Is this related?


W150
No fix, txt is 0 bytes.


W153
Not sure it is a bug.


W160
Not sure it is a bug, but I like it.


W167
Not sure it is a bug. I prefer to trade it.


W170
Not sure it is a bug. Can you explain the difference?

[Seravy]

W041
It never happen to me and I would like to see (not contact, of course) the defeated wizards stats.
Do you think it is possible, as a mod, without corrupting the game?

It's possible to remove the requirement to only show contacted wizards. You would see everyone from turn though so I don't think that's a very good idea. If you really want to see, you can load your game in 1.40n, cast Nature Awareness to trigger the bug then continue playing in the new version.

W043
I suppose it was "engineered" to let AI stacks stay together, however it is a bug, let's see what happens to AI.

Nope, this was in the manual player movement only. The AI uses the automatic movement procedure. The developers probably thought no one wants to split a stack of units, ever or idk

W045
The description in the manual says the spell slows all units by 1, regardless flying or corporeal status.
The help text is for the old version and needs to be fixed.

The spellbook.pdf that comes with 1.31 says nonflying, noncorporeal, though.

W049
So did you augmented the vision or changed the description?

Neither, I changed the number displayed to match the description.
So a unit that sees 3 squares will now show "Scouting II" not "Scouting III" but it will still see 3 squares.

W053
Instead of an item generation type 2, any cost, it will generate a type 0 item with a cost of, I think, 2000-4000 or something like that.
type 2 is the AI player's Create Artifact spellcasting, so it checks for books and stuff like that.
type 0 is dungeon treasure, which does not, at least in insecticide. I think the original game did.

W102
Yes, tweaker can do that. You only need to change their fortress status to active, and give them a town.

W108
spellbook.pdf says
"Wind walking exerts no effect during combat"
It did act otherwise, to be specific only the spell made it so that the unit could only be attacked by units that can be attacked by flying units manually,but the unit wasn't flying itself and auto could still attack it.

W111
I prefer AI attacks units based on defense (easier unit goes first, even if it is my beloved champion).
With same defense, more expensive units should be attacked first (enemy must spend more to rebuild them).

Although original code was based on defense, it wasn't a very good implementation, the effect was too small. A 3 def unit had 27 chance to get damaged but a 10 def unit still had 20.
The cost based version aims to simulate that the defender is trying to protect the more valuable unit by playing carefully. (and in general, more expensive units have more defense, not all of them ofc)

W125
What is "reserve space for var_1E"? noidea

that's what the next line of code does : reserves 2 bytes in the stack for a local variable, which the new code will use. Doesn't matter for you unless you intend to further mod the procedure

W127
Windwalk carried units are participating in the battle, they aren't "not involved".

W128
No, the mana cap is in like 10+ places in the code, besides 15k mana is too low, it would be inconvenient.
It would be better to just fix the bug itself, but I couldn't figure it out at that time, and wanted to mod the fortress multipliers anyway for CoM so didn't bother.

W129
Auto and AI did not have the bug, they were using Demon Lords correctly. It was possible to manually summon, however.

W134
-AI will not put Spell Charges for spells they don't know into their items. Like High Prayer with 10 chaos books.
-Treasure does not have a book requirement, but Enchant Item and Create Artifact do (not sure if I fixed this or just kept the insecticide change I don't remember)
-Game will try to find a predefined item of appropriate value up to 1000 times instead of 50 before resorting to random generation in treasure.

W136
This fixes the Merging item power to grant Merging movement to the unit. It does not unlock creating items with it, though, but those predefined items that have it by default, will work.

W138
No they couldn't heal but there is a file for enabling that, too.
It happens because the unit loses a spell that grants bonus health, like Lionheart or Charm of Life, but the damage it has taken is unchanged, exceeding the new remaining health.
Most frequently it happens with the Lionheart item power, because it only grants the 8 health in battle, not overland.

W139
Yes, it works for Guardian Wind.
No, Magic Immunity has no effect on dispel.
No, magical weapons are not removed, I did not fix Holy Weapon, Eldritch Weapon.
The unit will only lose effects from spells no longer on the unit after the dispel.

W145
Yes, most likely.

W146
Exactly what it says. It contains code for CoM's Guardian retort, because the two were coded in the same place and couldn't be separated. However, I changed a byte to make sure the Guardian effect never activates.

W148
No. That was caused by the bug fixed by W127. You could revive any unit that wasn't living, including "recalled", "not involved" and "fleeing" on top of "dead" and "dead from life draining".

W150
Seems like I forgot to delete the file :D

W170
Book 10 contains 3 Very Rares if you take it when starting the game.
If you find it in a lair, it contains 1 Very Rare instead.
Book 2 contains no Very Rare if you take it when starting the game.
but if you find it in a lair, it does contain one.
problems like these.

The inconsistency makes it possible to have 11+ books and still miss spells of that realm, if the last few books were found.

[FrancoK]

W041
It never happen to me and I would like to see (not contact, of course) the defeated wizards stats.
Do you think it is possible, as a mod, without corrupting the game?

It's possible to remove the requirement to only show contacted wizards. You would see everyone from turn though so I don't think that's a very good idea. If you really want to see, you can load your game in 1.40n, cast Nature Awareness to trigger the bug then continue playing in the new version.

No way to have a patch as a FEAT of course?

W045
The description in the manual says the spell slows all units by 1, regardless flying or corporeal status.
The help text is for the old version and needs to be fixed.

The spellbook.pdf that comes with 1.31 says nonflying, noncorporeal, though.

The Master of Magic Spellbook is updated to version 1.2 and there is no newer version.
The Master of Magic Strategy Guide is up to 1.3, very detailed and AFAIK only available on paper.

W049
So did you augmented the vision or changed the description?

Neither, I changed the number displayed to match the description.
So a unit that sees 3 squares will now show "Scouting II" not "Scouting III" but it will still see 3 squares.

There are Scouting III units?

W053
Instead of an item generation type 2, any cost, it will generate a type 0 item with a cost of, I think, 2000-4000 or something like that.
type 2 is the AI player's Create Artifact spellcasting, so it checks for books and stuff like that.
type 0 is dungeon treasure, which does not, at least in insecticide. I think the original game did.

Gotcha. However 2K-4K could be not much for a gift from gods, IMHO. There are more expensive object.

W102
Yes, tweaker can do that. You only need to change their fortress status to active, and give them a town.

Thank you.

W108
spellbook.pdf says
"Wind walking exerts no effect during combat"
It did act otherwise, to be specific only the spell made it so that the unit could only be attacked by units that can be attacked by flying units manually,but the unit wasn't flying itself and auto could still attack it.

It used to be like this in 1.2.
The new version is this:

W111
I prefer AI attacks units based on defense (easier unit goes first, even if it is my beloved champion).
With same defense, more expensive units should be attacked first (enemy must spend more to rebuild them).

Although original code was based on defense, it wasn't a very good implementation, the effect was too small. A 3 def unit had 27 chance to get damaged but a 10 def unit still had 20.
The cost based version aims to simulate that the defender is trying to protect the more valuable unit by playing carefully. (and in general, more expensive units have more defense, not all of them ofc)

Since the choice of the target is made by the attacker, it should be the opposite of the defender.
If the defender want to protect the most valuable units, the attacker wants to kill them.
In effects the choice should be:
Most damaged first (or less HP combined by number of figures in the unit)
If 2 or more unit have the same HP, then the most damageable first
If 2 or more unit have the same chance to be damaged, then most valuable first.
This is how I usually choose the targets, unless I'm looking for something particular, like killing a certain hero.

W127
Windwalk carried units are participating in the battle, they aren't "not involved".

ok.

W128
No, the mana cap is in like 10+ places in the code, besides 15k mana is too low, it would be inconvenient.
It would be better to just fix the bug itself, but I couldn't figure it out at that time, and wanted to mod the fortress multipliers anyway for CoM so didn't bother.

Sure, fixing the bug is better, but it is not easy, as you've seen.
Putting a cap at the beginning of the turn at 15K for all wizards ensures all of them (including player) can cast in defense of the Capitol and have a reduced cost.
You can find it here

W129
Auto and AI did not have the bug, they were using Demon Lords correctly. It was possible to manually summon, however.

Ok.

W134
-AI will not put Spell Charges for spells they don't know into their items. Like High Prayer with 10 chaos books.
-Treasure does not have a book requirement, but Enchant Item and Create Artifact do (not sure if I fixed this or just kept the insecticide change I don't remember)
-Game will try to find a predefined item of appropriate value up to 1000 times instead of 50 before resorting to random generation in treasure.

Very good!

W136
This fixes the Merging item power to grant Merging movement to the unit. It does not unlock creating items with it, though, but those predefined items that have it by default, will work.

Wow!
Tell me the truth, you were a MoM developer and decided to fix the remaining bug, because they did not let sleep.
How can you find so many bugs in so few time, otherwise?

W138
No they couldn't heal but there is a file for enabling that, too.
It happens because the unit loses a spell that grants bonus health, like Lionheart or Charm of Life, but the damage it has taken is unchanged, exceeding the new remaining health.
Most frequently it happens with the Lionheart item power, because it only grants the 8 health in battle, not overland.

I mean, after this patch, can they heal?
Not sure, but it happened me for other reason.

W139
Yes, it works for Guardian Wind.
No, Magic Immunity has no effect on dispel.
No, magical weapons are not removed, I did not fix Holy Weapon, Eldritch Weapon.
The unit will only lose effects from spells no longer on the unit after the dispel.

Great!

W148
No. That was caused by the bug fixed by W127. You could revive any unit that wasn't living, including "recalled", "not involved" and "fleeing" on top of "dead" and "dead from life draining".

I see. AFAIK single units cannot flee, to you think it is possible to implement it as a mod?

W170
Book 10 contains 3 Very Rares if you take it when starting the game.
If you find it in a lair, it contains 1 Very Rare instead.
Book 2 contains no Very Rare if you take it when starting the game.
but if you find it in a lair, it does contain one.
problems like these.

The inconsistency makes it possible to have 11+ books and still miss spells of that realm, if the last few books were found.

Very interesting. What happens if I have 10 book of a realm and miss 1 very rare spell and 3 books of another realm and find a book reaching 11 and getting 3 very rare spell? I suppose I'll get only one of the first realm, none of the second with no crash. I'm right?

[Seravy]

Oh, the strategy guide.
I've seen the Master of Orion version of it, I think that's more like a "the game works like this so you should..." type of document, I mean it was written based on how the game works, not the other way around.
How should I say...
Rulebook -> Coding the game -> Strategy guide.

The people making the Strategy Guide weren't the ones deciding what the game is supposed to be like, were they?

There are Scouting III units?

Yes, a hero, I think the druid? Or the Ranger, not sure.
The game can display the ability up to Scouting IV, but there is no such unit without modding.

Most damaged first (or less HP combined by number of figures in the unit)

Originally it did that and it was stupid. You got a bunch of dead units, and a bunch of survivors at full health and only one wounded. If it rolled to hurt the Sky Drake first, you ended up with a dead Sky Drake and 8 surviving Spearmen.
In any serious battle I do, I end up with most of the units damaged, but none dead.
Yes the attacker can chose what to attack but the defender decides which unit to move out of range to keep safe, where to target healing, etc. The AI might not play like that in real combat which is why you assume you can always attack what you want, but it's not realistic. If the AI was a bit more intelligent, it would move away with the damaged unit, while the ones with full health attack your troops.
And don't forget, Strategic combat is the same for both sides! If it maxes dead units, you will losing more of them, too.
Oh and the most important part : This change allows the AI to expand with losing fewer units, so they'll be more efficient. This especially helps them in keeping heroes alive. It also makes AI to AI wars have a real effect on the game, as the winning side loses fewer units, they can advance further and even defeat each other.
With the original code, a battle against a unit of war bears using 5 war bears and a hero was a russian roulette, 1/6 chance to lose the hero...I don't think anyone would lose any unit in a fight like that, and definitely not the hero.

15k mana cap is just a big no. I rather keep the bug instead. You need that 30k for casting a Time Stop and maintaining it.

I mean, after this patch, can they heal?

Yes they can, W216 enables it.

I see. AFAIK single units cannot flee, to you think it is possible to implement it as a mod?

Indeed they cannot but it would be possible to make mods like that most likely. At a time I considered to change Cloak of Fear to make enemies flee if they fail the resistance roll, but didn't do it, would be too overpowered. As I didn't do it in the end, I don't know if it works or not but in theory it should.

Very interesting. What happens if I have 10 book of a realm and miss 1 very rare spell and 3 books of another realm and find a book reaching 11 and getting 3 very rare spell? I suppose I'll get only one of the first realm, none of the second with no crash. I'm right?

The 11th book gives you nothing at all. It's assumed that you have all spells from the first ten, which you were supposed to have, if this wasn't bugged.
Anyway, if you find a book and you already have the missing spells from trades or treasure, you simply do not get those, there is no crash and you don't get spells from other realms.

[FrancoK]

Oh, the strategy guide.
I've seen the Master of Orion version of it, I think that's more like a "the game works like this so you should..." type of document, I mean it was written based on how the game works, not the other way around.
How should I say...
Rulebook -> Coding the game -> Strategy guide.

The people making the Strategy Guide weren't the ones deciding what the game is supposed to be like, were they?

I do not MOO books, but in this case they are the same people that made the game, also they explained the manual shipped with the game was for v1.2 rules, because the books must be sent to the prints month before the game release and 1.2 was the version available at the time (in effects the first boxes contained an even earlier version of the manual).
Of course the developers of the game was helped in making the manual, but the rules in this book are from them and are v1.3, unlike the manual that comes with the game (v1.2).

There are Scouting III units?

Yes, a hero, I think the druid? Or the Ranger, not sure.
The game can display the ability up to Scouting IV, but there is no such unit without modding.

The Beastmaster, he has Scouting III, but I suppose you trimmed down to Scouting II.

Most damaged first (or less HP combined by number of figures in the unit)

Originally it did that and it was stupid. You got a bunch of dead units, and a bunch of survivors at full health and only one wounded. If it rolled to hurt the Sky Drake first, you ended up with a dead Sky Drake and 8 surviving Spearmen.[/quote]
Why? Spearmen have less HP and less defense, so they should go first in the list of the units to kill.

In any serious battle I do, I end up with most of the units damaged, but none dead.

In real life? Yes. In a game where you can target with a lightning bolt the units? I do not think so.

Yes the attacker can chose what to attack but the defender decides which unit to move out of range to keep safe, where to target healing, etc. The AI might not play like that in real combat which is why you assume you can always attack what you want, but it's not realistic. If the AI was a bit more intelligent, it would move away with the damaged unit, while the ones with full health attack your troops.

Yes, the distance has to be taken in account as well.

And don't forget, Strategic combat is the same for both sides! If it maxes dead units, you will losing more of them, too.

I do expect that.

Oh and the most important part : This change allows the AI to expand with losing fewer units, so they'll be more efficient. This especially helps them in keeping heroes alive. It also makes AI to AI wars have a real effect on the game, as the winning side loses fewer units, they can advance further and even defeat each other.

This help the AI to have a bunch of low power, wounded troops around with a maintenance cost as a fully healed unit; instead, if the weaker unit goes down, AI can replace them with more powerful unit. So I can finally fight with decent opponents and not bunch of spermen barely able to scratch my troops.

With the original code, a battle against a unit of war bears using 5 war bears and a hero was a russian roulette, 1/6 chance to lose the hero...I don't think anyone would lose any unit in a fight like that, and definitely not the hero.

With the change I suggest the heroes goes down last, if it is mildly powerful, and AI should put item on it so even a newbie hero is protected; as all the human players do.

15k mana cap is just a big no. I rather keep the bug instead. You need that 30k for casting a Time Stop and maintaining it.

Ok, Time Stop will benefit from it, on the other hand, all combat spell casted in the capital will benefit a 50% discount on cast and mana expenditure. As you can see the weight of the benefits is really unbalanced.
If you agree we can keep the bug until it is solved (who knows?) and use the fix for the mods.

I mean, after this patch, can they heal?

Yes they can, W216 enables it.

Very good!

I see. AFAIK single units cannot flee, to you think it is possible to implement it as a mod?

Indeed they cannot but it would be possible to make mods like that most likely. At a time I considered to change Cloak of Fear to make enemies flee if they fail the resistance roll, but didn't do it, would be too overpowered. As I didn't do it in the end, I don't know if it works or not but in theory it should.

Thank you. I found this option very powerful and interesting.

Very interesting. What happens if I have 10 book of a realm and miss 1 very rare spell and 3 books of another realm and find a book reaching 11 and getting 3 very rare spell? I suppose I'll get only one of the first realm, none of the second with no crash. I'm right?

The 11th book gives you nothing at all. It's assumed that you have all spells from the first ten, which you were supposed to have, if this wasn't bugged.

You're right.

Anyway, if you find a book and you already have the missing spells from trades or treasure, you simply do not get those, there is no crash and you don't get spells from other realms.

Excellent!

[Seravy]

Why? Spearmen have less HP and less defense, so they should go first in the list of the units to kill.

It's a list of weights to be randomly selected. Not a list of order.
Sky Drake has 10 defense so it had a weight of 20. A Spearmen with 2 defense had a weight of 28. That means out of these two units, if there aren't more, you have a 20/48 chance to get the Sky Drake selected first.
So with 8 Spearmen and 1 Sky Drake, you would have about 20/264 or something chance to get the Drake selected first...but if it happens, it'll keep taking damage until it dies and then the Spearmen survive (or if there is more damage left, they also start getting killed one by one).
Ultimately, whichever units was selected first is dead, and that's random. Weighted, but random.
Ofc, the Drake has more HP than Spearmen, but if there is enough damage in the queue, the Drake getting killed with no Spearmen taking damage can and will happen at the above mentioned 20/264 chance.

In real life? Yes. In a game where you can target with a lightning bolt the units? I do not think so.

Depends. For starters, neutral encounters don't throw lightning bolts. Nor do Life wizards.
But even if they can do it, would they really target your swordsmen unit with 1 figure left, wasting a lot of mana killing it, or would they go for damaging a unit that still has a lot of health? Killing the most damaged unit is good strategy if you expect to lose the battle but if you expect to win, hitting the least damaged unit to get the best damage out of the mana you can spend is better.
Besides, there are a limited amount of spells you can cast in a battle, but there are, usually more units participating. At least some of them should be surviving, and by some, I mean more than always exactly one.

Yes, the distance has to be taken in account as well.

Strategic Combat does not have a distance at all. It's just roll some dice, compare the sum power of both armies+the rolls+spell casting capacity, higher wins the battle then takes damage equal to the lower army's power distributed semi-randomly.
How that damage is distributed is what can be used to simulate the strategies and movement the players employed in battle - the more evenly the damage is distributed, the better the winner was moving their units around to distribute damage.
While it might sound counter-intuitive from the loser's perspective that the most expensive units survive, it matches the goal of the winner, and it's more reasonable to assume that the winner of the battle was more capable at achieving their goals in the battle.
Additionally, more expensive units do come with better survivability, either in form of higher movement, more health, more defense, abilities like flight or various immunities, etc., or at least good enough offense/first strike/thrown/breath/gaze to take out anything that would approach them before they kill the unit. (albeit this sadly isn't true without balance related modding, some expensive units are completely worthless there. )

This help the AI to have a bunch of low power, wounded troops around with a maintenance cost as a fully healed unit; instead, if the weaker unit goes down, AI can replace them with more powerful unit. So I can finally fight with decent opponents and not bunch of spermen barely able to scratch my troops.

Not sure how being so much more slow paced than my mod affects this exactly, but at the very least I think a damaged stack of units will be able to regain health faster than building new units. Important battles are usually in cities, where they heal up faster, and if there are more survivors, there is no need to send more units to guard the city.
About the quality of the units, the AI does produce the better units when they are available based on random chance, and the weaker ones will get dismisses as soon as the global max unit cap is reached, to make room for more. (or if you don't install that change, they'll get disbanded once every 25 turns but I don't recommend that, the original code dismissed even heroes!)
Each unit has (cost^2)/10 chance to get selected for production by default (in the CoM mod I assigned actual chances for selecting each unit instead, but I won't add this to raid because the default stats of the unit do not match the mod, units that are good there are usually horrible in the original game).
Maintenance is meaningless for the AI, they have a HUGE discount on it, something like 50% around normal/hard and 75% on impossible? On top of earning 200/300/400% gold. Keeping the spearmen to be able to get more taxes and less rebels should be good for the AI on all but the lowest difficulty. If there is no need for them to guard anything, they'll get assigned to some attacking stack and get used up.

With the change I suggest the heroes goes down last, if it is mildly powerful, and AI should put item on it so even a newbie hero is protected; as all the human players do.

The AI does equip their heroes with items. If they find an item the hero can equip, that is. They can also cast Create Artifact or Enchant Item.

Edit : marked W128 as optional.

[Tiltowait]

Oh, the strategy guide.
I've seen the Master of Orion version of it, I think that's more like a "the game works like this so you should..." type of document, I mean it was written based on how the game works, not the other way around.

You haven't read the MoM strategy guide?

How should I say...
Rulebook -> Coding the game -> Strategy guide.

The people making the Strategy Guide weren't the ones deciding what the game is supposed to be like, were they?

The Strategy Guide was written in close consultation with the developers and reflects how the game actually is, for the most part. The author is Alan Emrich, if you've ever heard of him. There are inaccuracies but I regard it as better than the manual. Why not read yourself and judge? http://megadrv.com/master.of.magic-strategy.guide.pdf