I just added a handful of Score Modifiers, mostly "essentials" like Adamantium for the starting city and alike.
The download link in the first post has been updated.
The download link in the first post has been updated.
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Mod for Caster of Magic for Windows: More Stuff
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(October 6th, 2023, 03:04)Slingers Wrote:(October 5th, 2023, 17:55)Leobuilt Wrote: Hello! Getting a CTD with  I do not. In future, what would be best? The turn right before a crash? Is there some logs I can include or some debugging tool?
(October 6th, 2023, 12:04)Leobuilt Wrote: ... In future, what would be best? The turn right before a crash? Is there some logs I can include or some debugging tool? Aha. One could look at the log.txt from the games main folder after a crash happened or at a revealed map the turn before. If you can give instructions on what to do to cause the crash, one save file can be enough to pinpoint the bug. 
***********Looked at earlier posts, please disregard.**********
AhHA! I figured it out. Atlantean's create Barbarian settlers. The two settlers you start with are Atlantean, but any you build after that are Barbarian. When they go from outposts to villages, the game crashes.
The first post has been updated with the download link for the latest MOD version which is compatible with COM V1.5.2 and contains some minor fixes and improvements.
New Score Modifier: BOOKWORM "Each time a wizard is banished or defeated, there is a chance that one of their spell books will become the winner's possession. The book will then no longer be legible as far as its previous content is concerned, but it keeps all the other advantages."
Thanks for this mod, I've been enjoying it a ton. I got scared when I saw the bit about 150 new units, but I think you distributed things the right way; overall the balance / difficulty feels mostly the same. Anyway I've played until 1510 and kept notes, so I have quite a lot of comments!
Here are some favorite points: - New races: these are overall very good, with interesting powers and drawbacks. Good job! - New lair enemies: interesting idea to make them unobtainable by the player. Some layer / node types desperately needed this kind of variety. - New spells: mostly good, some are a bit OP. Bugs: - Lobsters become invisible in water. I assume this is intentional? There's no ability card for it. They also start off invisible in wild monster packs that attack cities built on rivers, even if they're not in the water. I'm assuming that's a bug. - Unicorns in lairs get Healing, but don't have an ability card for that. They seem to get 2 casts? I did see the card appear on my own undead unicorn, oddly. - Flood spell: enemy AI prioritizes this spell highly but if it lacks the mana for a second casting, the AI has basically wasted its mana and lost the battle; not exactly a bug, but close. In a player's hands, I feel like this spell would also be too OP (lots of ways to abuse swamps). If it were a single cast spell that had random swamp/river/water effects on the enemy side of the map only, that might be more balanced for both AI and player. - My hero who was previously hit by Confusion still has it in future battles, but there's no ability card for that and Dispel Magic does nothing. Bug? If that's an intended effect, then the death at end of battle effect that Confusion previously had might as well be returned -- perma Confusion is just as bad. - Gnome magician invisibility is broken. I can cast it and invisibility takes effect, but the very next action causes the unit to become visible again (any action: moving another unit, casting, etc.) So it's useless to cast. I don't have the regular Invisibility spell so no idea if that's also broken. - Sea maze building from Atlanteans: appears to have a maintenance cost of hundreds of coins? The coin counter scrolls quite far to the right. Also the build cost is 5, which is a bit odd. Maybe the cost / upkeep units got reversed? - For heroes, it says level 6 (1100 ep) is Lord, but my hero with 600 is a Lord and hero with <600 is Champion. I don't have Warlord or any other +level effect. Other comments: - Kiss of Death affects even units with Death Immunity, doesn't say it does, and probably should not at Common level. - Also, as a Death player I hate to admit it but... Kiss of Death is just plain overpowered. With a -13 modifier it's basically unstoppable outside of things like high tier Life units. Kills high tier units like magicians in ~5 turns even if they can run away. With a flying or invisible unit it can wipe out entire garrisons or lairs by itself, since the casting cost it cheap. And, it can turn units that are normally very difficult to get as undead, like Chaos Spawn. I think the spell should be changed so that it has: 100% chance to take effect (no save); 100% chance to roll per turn; but a per turn save of -4. That way the casting wizard would need to also spend mana on Black Prayer + Mislead to damage higher resist units, and the AI could counter the ongoing effect with Resist Magic / Bless. If left the way it is the game can easily be won by rushing Night Stalker and then using Kiss to zombify a bunch of Rare units. - Gnomes: I love the concept of these little guys, but in practice, it's sort of unplayable for the human because they ALL have stealth which makes it impossible not to repeatedly attack the gnome AI, making non-aggression and pacts impossible and the overland campaign just generally annoying and un-fun. I'm in mid-late game with two gnome players on Myrror and you just can't take a step anywhere without hitting a gnome... Maybe for the purpose of this mod, stealth units should be visible on the map. - Goblins: Poison on every ranged attack is crazy strong, my pathetic little goblin bowmen can sometimes 1-shot units like wild boars. Granted it's ineffective vs high resist units, but then, goblins also have pretty effective melee units later on. I think maybe their ranged unit production cost should be higher (lore reason: it's expensive to apply poison to every arrow...). - The Atlantean Dragon Lord looks way too powerful as well... luckily I haven't seen one in the wild yet. But getting a free Little Dragon summon every battle makes it basically the most powerful normal unit in the game; 9 Dragon Lord = 9 disposable dragons every battle. Yikes. - Basilisk with Stoning Gaze -1 is a bit OP for Uncommon, the Regeneration effect already made that unit quite powerful. If it needs an extra effect I'd suggest poison. - Bound spells on various units: interesting idea, a bit OP. Feels like magicians should lose 5 mp across the board to compensate. (November 4th, 2023, 19:35)jhsidi Wrote: Thanks for this mod, I've been enjoying it a ton. I got scared when I saw the bit about 150 new units, but I think you distributed things the right way; overall the balance / difficulty feels mostly the same. Anyway I've played until 1510 and kept notes, so I have quite a lot of comments! Thank you for the detailed feedback! It helps a ton to improve things! > Added Diver icon. Wild Invisibility behaviour should be fixed. Quote:- Unicorns in lairs get Healing, but don't have an ability card for that. They seem to get 2 casts? I did see the card appear on my own undead unicorn, oddly. > The “Healing Spell” icon disappears after 2 uses of the spell. Quote:- Flood spell: enemy AI prioritizes this spell highly but if it lacks the mana for a second casting, the AI has basically wasted its mana and lost the battle; not exactly a bug, but close. In a player's hands, I feel like this spell would also be too OP (lots of ways to abuse swamps). If it were a single cast spell that had random swamp/river/water effects on the enemy side of the map only, that might be more balanced for both AI and player. > Abuse swamps if your Magic Spirit is attacked by enemy ships! ;P If the spell only affected the enemy side of the map, the AI would still not know which side its units were on when it was cast. I also thought that this was a completely AI-unfriendly spell and was already wondering how I could make it less so... until I saw the AI reacting with Water Walking! So I would say that the AI uses this spell like the blind chicken that sometimes finds a corn, but from what I've seen so far it gives the impression to be able to counter it. AI priority should be lowered, I guess? Quote:- My hero who was previously hit by Confusion still has it in future battles, but there's no ability card for that and Dispel Magic does nothing. Bug? If that's an intended effect, then the death at end of battle effect that Confusion previously had might as well be returned -- perma Confusion is just as bad. > How did he end up in this poor state? Was it a tie after attacking, retreating exhausted or fleeing? Quote:- Gnome magician invisibility is broken. I can cast it and invisibility takes effect, but the very next action causes the unit to become visible again (any action: moving another unit, casting, etc.) So it's useless to cast. I don't have the regular Invisibility spell so no idea if that's also broken. > It should work now. Quote:- Sea maze building from Atlanteans: appears to have a maintenance cost of hundreds of coins? The coin counter scrolls quite far to the right. Also the build cost is 5, which is a bit odd. Maybe the cost / upkeep units got reversed? > Swapped Quote:- For heroes, it says level 6 (1100 ep) is Lord, but my hero with 600 is a Lord and hero with <600 is Champion. I don't have Warlord or any other +level effect. > Fixed Help.txt Quote:Other comments: > I was already thinking that this spell might be next to useless. Chance of 1HP damage/turn reduced from 75% to 66%. Quote:- Gnomes: I love the concept of these little guys, but in practice, it's sort of unplayable for the human because they ALL have stealth which makes it impossible not to repeatedly attack the gnome AI, making non-aggression and pacts impossible and the overland campaign just generally annoying and un-fun. I'm in mid-late game with two gnome players on Myrror and you just can't take a step anywhere without hitting a gnome... Maybe for the purpose of this mod, stealth units should be visible on the map. > Treaties prevent accidental attacks. If there is no treaty, early conflict with Gnomes shouldn't be a problem. They should lose due to having the lowest growth rate. With later Gnome leaders, it's trick-or-treating. Maybe Illusion Immunity should counter Stealth overland? But I'm not sure if this can be done with a mod. Quote:- Goblins: Poison on every ranged attack is crazy strong, my pathetic little goblin bowmen can sometimes 1-shot units like wild boars. Granted it's ineffective vs high resist units, but then, goblins also have pretty effective melee units later on. I think maybe their ranged unit production cost should be higher (lore reason: it's expensive to apply poison to every arrow...). > “If you like winning, play Goblins and a straight road to victory will be yours! …” Higher unit costs might be a good idea. Quote:- The Atlantean Dragon Lord looks way too powerful as well... luckily I haven't seen one in the wild yet. But getting a free Little Dragon summon every battle makes it basically the most powerful normal unit in the game; 9 Dragon Lord = 9 disposable dragons every battle. Yikes. > Dragon Lords are a shadow of what they once were when they summoned Great Drakes. The Little Dragon is stat-wise half a Great Drake atm. It is also an uncommon combat summon, intended as an upgrade to the Fire Elemental. So I thought they are better than Fire Elementals, but not Great Drakes. Quote:- Basilisk with Stoning Gaze -1 is a bit OP for Uncommon, the Regeneration effect already made that unit quite powerful. If it needs an extra effect I'd suggest poison. > Poison can't attack fliers and Cockatrices even have Stoning Touch -4! Great Lizards are large, regenerating ducks that move clumsily and are certainly well balanced. The original unit was much scarier due to its Stoning Gaze. I reset that and lowered the To Hit a bit, added Waterwalking... and still didn't use it as a player, so I don't know. Maybe now it's worth trying to rush it? I still have no idea. Quote:- Bound spells on various units: interesting idea, a bit OP. Feels like magicians should lose 5 mp across the board to compensate. > In COM 1.5.3 it will be possible to add spell abilities to units, e.g. through a special building. Edit: Updated Dowload link in the first post.
Regarding gnomes -- I don't usually play Myrran races so I'm encountering these later in the game. The stealth issue is not really a treaty vs non-treaty problem, it's more of just flat out playability and allowing the game to remain fun. As we all know, later in the game the AI will absolutely flood the map with units.
Assuming I'm at war with the enemy AI, that's just annoying. Not challenging, mind you, these are very weak units. But I'm so annoyed I no longer want to be at war with this wizard. Assuming I'm not at war, well, I'm loading the game every time I try to take a step because, as I said, the AI absolutely floods the entire map with 1 to 2 unit stacks.. as it has always done. But now I can't see them. Again, I'm annoyed, but this time I have no "out" except an alliance or.. quitting the game. I'm actually choosing the latter, lol. Assuming I did bother to throw enough gifts at these wizards to ally with them, it's still annoying because there's a popup every time I try to move. Very unlucky that 2 wizards started with gnomes but seriously, they're so annoying. It's actually funny because it's totally in character for gnomes to be annoying and constantly underfoot, but... nevertheless, I'm giving up on this campaign for reasons other than challenge, lol. Regarding combat summons, I think any unit with it is going to be overpowered -- because they're basically equivalent to spells. You've priced the actual Little Dragon at 50 mana, which I think is somewhat reasonable, probably a bit cheap. So the Dragon Lord, a very powerful melee unit on its own, additionally gets 50+ mana per battle, with absolutely no downside! Actually, I've revised my opinion about the Dragon Lords being the most overpowered, though. I hadn't run into the Draugr yet... So the basic problem with these guys is: Life Steal raises undead. Life Steal works at range. Since it's a -save effect, this is going to go about the same as Goblins... except, after totally destroying whatever <10 resist enemy I face, I get it as a free undead! I decided to test this hypothesis out in a new game with some bowmen. The result was even crazier than I expected. I went into this battle:
Not only did I win with 0 HP lost (the one regular swordsman never did anything), I raised ALL 6 of those units as undead. Ghouls aren't even close to that good! The archers are actually insane, they 1 shot a unit of hell hounds with each attack! But the unit I really want to call out is Mummies. All I need to build to get them is Shrine > Builder's Hall > Oracle. Admittedly an expensive endeavor, but I can do that long before casting Elevation. As a result, I get a unit that's basically identical to Wraiths but weaker: Wraiths Junior. Except! They come with a built-in ranged attack. Which normally, while playing Death I'll take 2 Sorcery books to get Focus Magic, specifically to put that on my Wraiths -- it gives them the ability to regen without melee AND raise whatever they killed with their ranged attack as undead. But wait, there's more! They also get 3 free castings of Ghouls. Every battle. 9 Wraiths Junior = flood the map with 27 Ghouls. Which can actually kill almost anything in the game. Especially if I've got either Prayer or Black Prayer. So Mummies are actually far, far more powerful than the Very Rare, Death-only unit Wraiths. I could try playing a full game with Draugr but I can see even Phantasm is not going to pose any challenge. Anyway, I'd posit that there are 3 main imbalancing problems in this mod:
So at the risk of going too long I'd suggest thinking of:
Sorry for the novel, I have fun thinking about this stuff and hope it doesn't come across as too critical because it's really a treat to see MoM / CoM get these kinds of makeover mods to play with! (November 7th, 2023, 16:42)jhsidi Wrote: Regarding gnomes -- I don't usually play Myrran races so I'm encountering these later in the game. The stealth issue is not really a treaty vs non-treaty problem, it's more of just flat out playability and allowing the game to remain fun. As we all know, later in the game the AI will absolutely flood the map with units. Unlucky indeed. Do you still have a save file of it? I've never been in a situation like this. (November 7th, 2023, 16:42)@jhsidi Wrote: "Regarding gnomes -- I don't usually play Myrran races so I'm encountering these later in the game. The stealth issue ... the AI will absolutely flood the map with units..." |
