Good news guys! Slitherine have setup an official Master of Magic forum! And they've kindly moved my ever growing MoM2 wishlist thread into there too.

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=590

Hi ALl,

This may be a weird question, but I'm wondering if anyone has ever attempted to remake MOM with a command line interface, similar to the work that was done on the 1OOM project?

As a totally blind player, I've never been able to play this game before but have always been curious about it. I'd love to find a way to enjoy it without needing to depend on sighted assistance for everything.

I realize the odds against this are pretty high, but figured i"d ask here anyway, especially since Caster of Magic et al seem to be getting a lot of love lately. I just wish I had a way to play the original game somehow, but I doubt even my DOS screen reader could do that, as it seems very heavily icon-based.

Hey guys,

I asked this in a few other places and in some private convos with Civ3 gurus but haven't had much luck.

Does anyone know if there is a Mars Scenario for Civilization 3 out there somewhere?

I haven't had any luck finding one which surprises me since there's some awesome Mars colonization scenarios for Civ2, ToT, Civ4, Civ5, and they'll probably even be one for Civ6 sooner or later lol.

The only work I could find was Balthasar's amazing Mars terrain & map pack however running around Mars with half naked primitive warriors breaks immersion and does such gorgeous terrain an injustice so it would be really great to have a proper scifi mars scenario to play.



When I posted about this over at CivFinatics Balthasar himself posted and offered to make a scenario that uses his map however sadly he has recently passed away.

So I figure if there's no Civ3 mars scenario out there then maybe if I can get my hands on some other decent Civ3 scifi scenarios (pity there isn't an Alpha Centauri themed scenario for Civ3 as that would be perfect!) out there then maybe I could combine some of their stuff (with author's permission) with Balthasar's terrain & maps to make a simple but fun sandbox mars colonization scenario. I say simple as I'm a Civ2 modder not a Civ3 modder so I lack the skills to make some fancy scenario with story elements. However I've mucked around a bit with Civ3 mod files so I've got an okay grasp of moving files around, changing terrains and editing text files etc. Figured I'd put some Balthasar tribute stuff into the scenario too to pay my respects and also tip the hat to the Balthasar's Mars Scenario that could have been.

These are the Civ3 scifi scenarios I've gathered from helpers (but not tested yet) so far..

Alien Attack 1.7
Bigger Better Worlds
Dune
Escape of Zombie Island 2 - Remake
Fallout v1.13
H.G. Well's War of the worlds
Space Opera (probably too spacey though, need land based scifi stuff not space ships)
Stargate - The Battle of Antarctica
Stargate SG-1 - The Battle at Dakara Beta
X-COM - Alpha-Stadium


Anyone know of some other good ones?

.

Many of you are already be aware but Slitherine obtained the rights for Master of Magic last summer. You might already know that they're including the -previously unofficial- patch in the official release, but I haven't talked about Caster of Magic.
So Caster of Magic will be available for sale on Steam, GoG, and Slitherine's website starting today!
While that means you can't download it for free anymore, I hoping this money will ensure I'll be able to continue developing Caster of Magic in the future no matter what happens, and ideally, produce proper source code for it as a next step in development. As you already know, Caster of Magic was developed entirely by hacking the executable files as no one has the source code for the game anymore. While I was able to get very far using the current approach, at this time the really important missing features - enabling more than 4 enemy wizards in the game for example, or adding new content without having to remove the same amount of existing stuff - will require source code. That said, this is a plan for the future, and as long as possible I will keep patching the current Caster of Magic.
Obviously, the optional anime portraits won't be included, those remain available for download from my website separately, and of course, you need to own the game first to use it.
The Master of Magic patch is now version number 1.52 and will be part of the official release of the game, which is also available on Steam and Slitherine's website starting today, in addition to the existing GoG version. The contents are similar to the 1.51 patch but any included change originating from me or Kyrub's Insecticide that changed gameplay is removed and now available as optional patches, so you don't have to worry about that anymore. Lots of thanks to Drake158 for his help in making that possible!
https://www.gog.com/game/master_of_magic...r_of_magic

WARNING!
Different versions are not compatible. If you own the game on GOG, you have to buy the DLC on GoG as well. Same applies to Steam and Slitherine own website. This is especially important as it was reported it is possible to buy the DLC without the base game there but it's not possible to install it that way anyway.

Nonetheless, the usual changelog for the new version :

Quote:6.0
-Fixed bug : when fleeing from a combat with only combat summoned units remaining, the “while fleeing you lost” message contains invalid text.
-Earliest turn for rampaging monsters is now turn 32 instead of 25
-Changed rampaging monster total stack strength formula : (Turn+2*Difficulty-16)*(2+Difficulty) became (Turn+Difficulty-16)*(2+Difficulty)
-Changed strongest rampaging monster allowed formula : Turn*(Difficulty+2)+90 became  Turn*(Difficulty+2)+60
-The AI will not research Plane Shift before turn 160. (Note, it isn't usually possible but on the highest levels of difficulty, a Sage Master/Theurgist AI can get it a lot earlier than this, especially if they have low book counts)
-Expert difficulty AI population and gold bonus decreases by 10%.
-Master difficulty AI population, production and gold bonus decreases by 10%, magic power increases by 10%.
-Lunatic difficulty AI population bonus decreases by 10%, Gold and Production by 25%.
-Added “Difficulty” section with the full difficulty effect table into the document between AI and Known Bugs
-Fixed bug : AI ship to land attacks fail to recognize empty cities as valid targets, as they see it as a tile that's occupied but has no enemies ->must be friendly.
-Fixed bug : Engineers sometimes move for 0.5 to the next tile while building a road instead of 1.
-Fixed bug : Tactician increases chance of AI wizards picking Lawful as their objective.
-Cult Leader now increases the chance of AI wizards being Lawful.
-Astrologer now increases the chance of AI wizards being Lawful.
-Conjurer now increases the chance of AI wizards being Aggressive.
-Fixed bug : Exorcise item and unit ability ignores Spell Lock.
-Mystic Surge's “enemy To Def reduced by 1” effect now applies to all attack types instead of being limited to melee, thrown and missile.
-Default second guaranteed uncommon sorcery spell pick for human players changed to Water Elemental from AEther Binding. (having the only uncommon create spell, now that the realm has one, is a more useful and interesting option for new players than a raw advantage of more casting skill.)
-Default first guaranteed uncommon chaos spell pick for human players changed to Chaos Channels from Fire Storm.
-Fixed bug : on the magic screen, the displayed remaining turns for researching Spell of Mastery is wrong.
-Immolation will now deal 4 damage per turn to Web, making it disappear faster.
-Fixed bug : wizard customization can't be reset after spell selection if there was nothing to choose. (by Drake178)
-Fixes bug: small islands are often smaller than intended (By Drake178)
-Fixed bug : Nature and Sorcery nodes were considered as an incorrect amount of food when placing capitals (unfortunately, rivers are still not considered as they are generated several steps after cities are.)
-Fixed bug : when saving and reloading while a unit is being transported, it might sometimes become unable to continue moving.
-Floating Island now costs 45 mana but cannot move the turn it was summoned.
-Fixed bug : AI casts Floating Island on a tile that has enemy units
-Fixed bug : AI casts Floating Island on a tile that has 9 units already
-The AI will now cast Floating Island at these targets in this order of priority :
1. The first “Ship necessary” place on the plane opposite of their fortress that existed the previous turn.
2. The same thing on their own plane
3. The closest valid sea tile to their fortress on their home plane.
This completely replaces old targeting which was random adjacent tile next to random town the wizard owns. This makes the AI able to summon Floating Islands on planes where they have no cities yet, allowing their units stuck on small tower islands to leave, and in genereal, reduces the time they waste by not summoning it where it was needed.
-The AI will have additional chance to cast Floating Island if “1.” on the previous list exists, even if it wouldn't cast it at all otherwise as it has enough ships on their home plane. (target validity is not checked here though so it might end up being cast elsewhere if the tile was taken between the turns.)
-Fixed bug : Outpost growth calculation used (maxpop+10)*2 as the maxpop value resulting in much higher growth and less shrinking than intended.
-Increased Guardian Spirit rampaging monster value (40->55) to make them appear in smaller groups on low difficulties.
-Invisibility now costs 6 to maintain instead of 4.
-The AI is now required to cast at least 70 other spells before attempting to cast Spell of Mastery again after a failed attempt.
-When banishing wizards, spells will be found only the first time that wizard is being banished by that player. Banishing the wizard any further times will not yield spells. (If you want to get more spells out of a player, use the intended channels to do so, trade or threaten the wizard. This change should allow players to concentrate fully on their strategy instead of having to take the number of times they banish each opponsnt into considersation.)
-Carrack now looks slightly different from a Galley to make it easier to recognize.
-Fixed bug : AI sometimes sends stacks from/to the wrong plane with Plane Shift
-Orc Hordes gain 1 defense and 1 resistance.
-Minotaurs gain 1 defense.

6.01
-Fixed bug : predefined items with Invisibility or Invulnerability can't be generated even beyond the intended turn of 100. (note, this did not affect random generated items, those could have had these item powers on them.)
-On Normal and Easy difficulty, the AI will engage enemies in melee with ranged units that run out of ammo, even if their attack strength is low.
-On Fair difficulty, Neutral enemies will not try to use any of the stalling tactics.
-Fixed bug : Attempting to cast Holy Weapon when Holy Arms is in effect fails to display the correct warning message and might cause the game to crash.
-Fixed bug : Moving units with the keyboard bypasses the planar check.
-Map generation continent size is now more accurate and continent generation is faster. (thanks, Drake178!)
-Fixed 5.7 bug : game sometimes crashes or corrupts memory when AI is trying to flee.
-The AI will no longer flee from battles where all their remaining units are Confused and switched sides for the turn.
-On Easy difficulty, enemy wizards are now forbidden from being Chaotic personality in addition to the previous restrictions.
-Overland spells now have a Counter-resistance vs Nightshade equal to their base cost. Cost modifiers (such as Evil Omens or Specialist) will not alter the success rate.
-Overhauled the “base cost” vs “effective cost” handling for overland spells. This fixes the bug of incorrect Spell Blast costs during Evil Omens. Spells that use the spell slider : Disenchant Area, Disjunction and Dispelling Wave are excluded from this fix : Their slider cost still affects the dispelling power and the other cost modifiers still do not. Yes, this means Spell Blast might still counter these for a negative cost during Evil Omens, that can't be helped.
-Added a FAQ section to the document.
-Fixed bug : Towers are sometimes generated too close to the X edges of the map, especially on smaller maps.
-The frequency of generated rampaging monsters is now scaled down if player count is lower than 4 to compensate for having fewer players the monsters can attack.
-Overexpansion warnings will never trigger below 5 cities even if it's the early game on smaller landmass sizes.
-Fixed bug : The AI casts Dispelling Wave against Wall of Shadows when they are defending instead of when they are attacking.

For the time being this is just an idea but I'd like to hear opinions.

What if item costs were not linear?

Yes, a hero with Haste is really good.
A hero with 25 defense is amazing.
A hero with Regeneration is awesome.
A hero with Wraith Form and 20 resistance is really hard to kill (except for Chaos mages).

But a hero with several or all of the above is where things start to get out of control.
So what if item costs were going up faster the more it already is?
For example an item with no abilities could gain Regeneration for 500. An item already having 1500 points worth of abilities would need 1000 to add Regeneration. An item with 2500 points would need 1500. Something like that, basically, the first 1 mana cost of the original price would only be 0.5 in the new system while the 2000th mana crystal would cost, maybe 2? We can worry about formulas later, the concept is the question first.


I feel the value of creating items with fewer abilities is nonexistent unless it's an earlygame item. How often do you make a Regeneration item without the other 3 slots filled with the best 3 abilities you can reasonably afford? I don't think I do that ever because my hero needs 3 items anyway so putting 4 slots worth of abilities on the first item is strictly superior to making 3 items that each have a third of those abilities. It costs the same but the former leaves me with a perfect item instead of 3 that will be obsolete once I make more. But if the cost difference was larger then investing into weaker items to be able to use them earlier AND not lose the ability to cast other spells for a consecutive 15-20 turns might make casting those items worth it.

This feature could be limited to enchant item and create artifact only, while treasure can stay linear - I think lair difficulty already increases faster than the budget involved (as it often means a higher tier creature or twice as many things shooting your guys the first turn) making the linear cost there completely fair.

One more time, this is just an idea, not something already decided.

For the past few days, I've been playing Streets of Rogue on my Switch.  No, it's nothing like the Sega beat-em-up series Streets of Rage.  Instead, it's a top-down "twinstick" action game with permadeath, many character classes, and many ways to clear (or fail) the missions for each level.


The one successful character I've had so far was a Gorilla.  These apes have maxed out Endurance, Melee, and Speed stats, but have a 1 in Firearms.  Then again, guns are pointless when they have the Stubby Fingers trait that prevents Gorillas from wielding them in the first place.  Another Gorilla drawback is the inability to speak to NPCs unless they find a Translator.  And even if you get that item, shopkeepers are Annoyed with Gorillas because of their Malodorous smell and want to chase them out of their buildings.  Scientists are always Hostile to Gorillas since the apes have a grudge against their experiments.


The Gorilla's special ability is a lunging melee attack, useful considering they have to fight all the time.  Their optional Big Quest is to free trapped Gorillas throughout the levels, which you'll want to do most of the time anyway because they fight alongside you.


Only one "mutator" option was used in my Gorilla run:  No Disasters.  I mostly wanted to get rid of the "different status effects every few seconds" event because it was annoying.  And the game was already challenging enough.  The key to winning was to buy as many Bananas as possible from vending machines, and then take the Gorilla perk that increased Banana healing.  A timely Translator let my character bribe Cops to ignore crimes and pay a Doctor to heal.


Uptown was the hardest area because of the densely packed buildings and many Supercops who were too honorable to bribe.  Mayor's Village was surprisingly simple for a final level, as all my Gorilla had to do was to beat up the Mayor, swipe his hat, get away from the few Supercops, then go to a nearby podium to make a speech.

Hello, Civ General.

I'll be away from civ-capable devices until February 24th, which means I'll miss (probably) 3 turns of PB46 and 1 turn of PB88. I'm managing two very dead civs in PB46 and PB88 is still in its infancy, so these turns are about as easy as they can be. Could anyone sub in very briefly, so I don't anger some 60+ people on the internet?

PB46

Please make one worker move. Just one but if it doesn't happen, I won't win the 52 player pitboss like I promised.    

I've been a longtime solver of crosswords, but a friend recently shared a puzzle that he had created and I was encouraged to try my hand as well. I referred to the guide and resources here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/cross...eries.html and it was a lot of fun, and nowhere near as daunting as I had previously thought.

I figured I'd post my first puzzle here for anyone interested in playing, and I'm open to feedback or questions. As a starting point, I've tried to follow the NYT crossword conventions in terms of theme words, puzzle setup, and clue conventions, and I've aimed at a Tuesday-Wednesday-ish level of difficulty, with a US and millennial perspective. I'm reasonably happy with how this one turned out as a first attempt with a less-than-ideal word bank and about 3 hours of work put into it, but I'd love to get better at constructing these, especially if there's interest here or among my RL friends.

EDIT:

I've revised my first attempt to swap out some words and clues that I wasn't too happy about.




Solution to Hobby Lobbies v2 in spoiler:

I have 2 opponents left, Raven and Oberic. I am at war with Raven, both are allied with Oberic.

I fought a stack of Raven's lizardmen halberdiers with a stack of mostly undead lizardmen halberdiers. Used a confusion and a possession along the way, last halberdier was in confused state. Then Raven fled, the message said enemy fled, you lost fame (?!). THEN it said 5 enemies are raised as zombies. Also, Raven is too low on mana to do combat casting and is banished.

So my stack reverted to where it attacked from on the map. And Raven's stack was replaced by 5 zombies ... of Oberic's!

No-one has Zombie Mastery cast or casting. Raven and myself have death books, Oberic does not. Oberic is casting aura of majesty, only globals are my Just Cause and Detect magic. Both Oberic and Raven have invisbility, so invis hero stacks could theoretically be anywhere (necromancy item). But no hero was involved in combat (I had undead so I would have seen). I  do not have necromancy items.

I saw it in many AAR that peoples tend to place their cities two tiles. What is the reason behind this strategy?
Another question is I have yet to see a tall play style. People tend to expand a lot and without building any buildings in their cities. Players focus on warriors, workers and settlers. Is tall play not a good style in ffh?