Master of Magic 1.5, temporal codename "Raid" development

[Seravy]

You're right, 1.31 says the chance is 5%, I would stay stick to the latest patch and change the 20% to 5%.
Again I agree with you creating the special tile while creating the volcano or after it turns to a mountain is not so important, but a chance 4 time greater to obtain a special mineral could.

In fact, these are two different features.
The 1.31 patch notes do not say "instead of". It does nothing to how volcanoes are created, nor mentions that, it just adds the new feature of them being able to turn to mountains.
We do not have official information about the % chance of volcanoes at the time of their creation, but "newly raised volcanoes have an enhanced chance of containing mineral deposits" would imply a higher than normal chance.

[FrancoK]

In fact, these are two different features.
The 1.31 patch notes do not say "instead of". It does nothing to how volcanoes are created, nor mentions that, it just adds the new feature of them being able to turn to mountains.
We do not have official information about the % chance of volcanoes at the time of their creation, but "newly raised volcanoes have an enhanced chance of containing mineral deposits" would imply a higher than normal chance.

They never said: It worked this way, now it works this way, they simply explains the new features.

From 1.0 to 1.3 it was "newly raised volcanoes have an enhanced chance of containing mineral deposits" without specifying how much and when they appear.
In 1.31 it is "Volcanoes have a 2% chance to revert to mountains each turn (with a 5% chance of providing a mineral vein)." without specifying if the mineral vein will appear after the volcano reverts to mountain (but seem to imply it) or when the volcano is created (like before as you saw in the code).
Cum grano salis we can see they saw the spell could be too helpful to enemies, like you already said, and lowered the chance to 5% from 20%, basically they agree with you the help to the enemy is potentially too much.
Making a long story short, they changed the chance to have a new mineral deposit.

[Seravy]

In fact, these are two different features.
The 1.31 patch notes do not say "instead of". It does nothing to how volcanoes are created, nor mentions that, it just adds the new feature of them being able to turn to mountains.
We do not have official information about the % chance of volcanoes at the time of their creation, but "newly raised volcanoes have an enhanced chance of containing mineral deposits" would imply a higher than normal chance.

They never said: It worked this way, now it works this way, they simply explains the new features.

From 1.0 to 1.3 it was "newly raised volcanoes have an enhanced chance of containing mineral deposits" without specifying how much and when they appear.
In 1.31 it is "Volcanoes have a 2% chance to revert to mountains each turn (with a 5% chance of providing a mineral vein)." without specifying if the mineral vein will appear after the volcano reverts to mountain (but seem to imply it) or when the volcano is created (like before as you saw in the code).
Cum grano salis we can see they saw the spell could be too helpful to enemies, like you already said, and lowered the chance to 5% from 20%, basically they agree with you the help to the enemy is potentially too much.
Making a long story short, they changed the chance to have a new mineral deposit.

I don't understand.

	Raise	Revert
1.3 and below	20%	Not implemented
1.31	20%	5%

This is what the patch implies.
You are talking about this :

	Raise	Revert
1.3 and below	20%	Not implemented
1.31	Removed	5%

"Volcanoes have a 2% chance to revert to mountains each turn (with a 5% chance of providing a mineral vein)." does imply that the chance is on reversion. "With" means "at the same time", "together".

[FrancoK]

	Raise	Revert
1.3 and below	20%	Not implemented
1.31	20%	5%

This is what the patch implies.
You are talking about this :

	Raise	Revert
1.3 and below	20%	Not implemented
1.31	Removed	5%

"Volcanoes have a 2% chance to revert to mountains each turn (with a 5% chance of providing a mineral vein)." does imply that the chance is on reversion. "With" means "at the same time", "together".

I agree, when I see the sentence the change at the same time is implied, but not explicit.
As you said the do not explain where the volcanoes come from, you have to know it (Raise V., Armageddon) and you have to know where to apply the changes.
This is a small table about some of the changed peculiarity of a volcano.

MoM Version	Mana provided	Revert to mountain	New vein	Damage to city
1.0	1 permanent	Not implemented	20%	15%
1.31	1 until revert	2%/turn	5% at reverting	15%

In the original version (MoM 1.0) a volcano is forever (unless another spell change it), gives the caster 1 permanent mana point every turn, has a 15% chance to destroy a building if raised on a city, for each building present.

In MoM 1.31 a patch was applied (even before, but it doesn't matter, now):
"Volcanoes have a 2% chance to revert to mountains each turn (with a 5% chance of providing a mineral vein)"
This implies:
1. The volcano is no more permanent until another spell change it, but it will eventually change with time.
2. The volcano will provide 1 mana point until it reverts to a mountain
3. The chance to get a vein is now 5% and happens when the volcano reverts.

None of this is written explicitly; what can we see from the code is:
- the revert to mountain has been done
- the get a new vein was half done, either they removed it by swapping create a new vein and remove the present vein or it was a bug (I bet on the second), but the create a vein when volcano reverts to mountain was never written.

All of this is something we are deducing, and probably we're correct, but they could also mean the volcanoes has a double change, the first change to the permanency and the second to the % of a new mineral.

One thing is sure: there is a bug, since it is not working.

Fixing it the way it should work is not easy, fixing it and leaving the creation of the mineral when the volcano is created is acceptable, IMO.
Having to choose between the v1.0 rate or the v1.31 one should leave no doubt: the latest patch is better.

[Seravy]

3. The chance to get a vein is now 5% and happens when the volcano reverts.

I agree with everything except this one. Nowhere is it written or implied that this 5% and that 20% are meant for the same feature.
yes, they are both related to volcanoes, and both create minerals minerals, but they happen on a different condition so they are two different things/effects altogether.
Unless the text includes the word "instead", or at the very least the word "now" to imply the previous effect to be replaced, I think it's better to assume "in addition to".

Normally I would say that the presence of the code in the game is proof they didn't want to remove it, but considering the new effect was not even added, I can't say that.

- the get a new vein was half done,

It wasn't. There is none of creating a vein whatsoever anywhere in the Revert_Volcano procedure.

The creation of vein call from New_Volcano_Tile was already there before the patch, is unrelated and was not changed. (although I don't have the 1.2 exe for proof, the spellbook.pdf implies this in the spell description)

Having to choose between the v1.0 rate or the v1.31 one should leave no doubt: the latest patch is better.

They are unrelated, though. Having a 20% chance to gain a million dollars now, and having 5% chance to get it on the day of my funeral are not at all comparable. We can't say the latter reduces the chance of gaining the million dollars to 5%.

I still think they wanted to have a 20% chance of minerals when the volcano is created, and a 5% chance when it disappears, either intentionally, or not. Whether they were aware of the 20% effect's existence at all is a mystery, since it never actually worked in the game. If a different member of the staff decided on adding the reversion effect than the one who made the raising, they might not have had the knowledge of the already existing, but nor working, 20%.

I'm not saying the 20% better for the game, it probably isn't, but I do think that's what they wanted (or that they weren't even aware of its existence in the code)

By the way, a more important matter is the chance distribution of each ore.
Default is
Iron : 5
Coal : 3
Silver : 3
Gold : 3
Gems : 2
Mithril : 2
Adamant : 2

Caster will use
Iron : 6
Coal : 3
Silver : 5
Gold : 2
Gems : 1
Mithril : 2
Adamant : 1
instead. I don't plan to change the distribution in Raid because ores in the vanilla game are much weaker, even at a 20% chance, this distribution isn't all that good. Even gold ore can barely make up for the lost food production on the tile, anything below that and the volcano is still going to hurt more than help...for about 50 turns at least.

[FrancoK]

3. The chance to get a vein is now 5% and happens when the volcano reverts.

I agree with everything except this one. Nowhere is it written or implied that this 5% and that 20% are meant for the same feature.
yes, they are both related to volcanoes, and both create minerals minerals, but they happen on a different condition so they are two different things/effects altogether.
Unless the text includes the word "instead", or at the very least the word "now" to imply the previous effect to be replaced, I think it's better to assume "in addition to".

It was changed an important feature about the volcanoes: they will revert to mountain, soon or later, before they where almost permanent.
Changing the trigger from creation of the volcano to the time when volcano reverts to mountain is logical both for real world and for game balancing.
In real world it will be very difficult (almost impossible with medieval tools) to dig an active volcano, however the developers had no choice: the volcano was designed to last forever (or until another spell change it).
For game mechanics, as you noticed, giving an enhanced chance to get a mineral vein is helpful to the enemy, so they decided to reduce the chance to 5% and, since the volcano is no more permanent, to differ the creation of the vein when the volcano is no more and there is a "solid" mountain. This way a volcano gives 0 resources, until it reverts.
I know you have to reverse engineer and from the code you have to guess what is the logic behind and you are doing a great job at this, but usually the developers follow a logic thought first, then he creates the code. The problem here is there are a lot of bugs, so it is difficult to see if a piece of code is written from a logic or if it is simply a bug.

Speaking about volcanoes, my idea is that a volcano is very destructive event, so if there is a road in the tile where the volcano is cast, that road should be destroyed. Not a FIX, a FEAT.
On the same tune, right now is easier to build a road on a volcano than on a mountain. My opinion is a road cannot be built on a volcano, again not a FIX, a FEAT. What do you think? Can be done?

(although I don't have the 1.2 exe for proof, the spellbook.pdf implies this in the spell description)

I could take a look at the original CD, if it is still readable. It came with the 1.2 version and the patch to 1.31.
The problem is we moved 3 times and the CD should be somewhere in a box in my box.
Maybe someone here has it already...

I'm not saying the 20% better for the game, it probably isn't, but I do think that's what they wanted (or that they weren't even aware of its existence in the code)

It is what they wanted? Yes, in the beginning. Later, with the same concern you have to help too much you enemies, they lowered it to 5%.

By the way, a more important matter is the chance distribution of each ore.
Default is
Iron : 5
Coal : 3
Silver : 3
Gold : 3
Gems : 2
Mithril : 2
Adamant : 2

You mean at the creation of the world or in this procedure (or is it the same)?

Caster will use
Iron : 6
Coal : 3
Silver : 5
Gold : 2
Gems : 1
Mithril : 2
Adamant : 1
instead. I don't plan to change the distribution in Raid because ores in the vanilla game are much weaker, even at a 20% chance, this distribution isn't all that good. Even gold ore can barely make up for the lost food production on the tile, anything below that and the volcano is still going to hurt more than help...for about 50 turns at least.

Well, the design of the volcano is to hurt more than than help, if you cast it an a game owned by the enemy, and to help more than hurt if you cast it on a tundra owned by you.
I found you weights more reasonable, if I may I would decrease Iron and increase Gold by 1, but hey! It is your mod, so do as it fit you.

[Seravy]

You mean at the creation of the world or in this procedure (or is it the same)?
I found you weights more reasonable, if I may I would decrease Iron and increase Gold by 1, but hey! It is your mod, so do as it fit you.

At the creation of the volcano.
Gold is far too valuable in the mod, it is +8 gold per turn, and it can be transmuted into adamantium and crysx crystals.
Not that it matters much from the player's side because you can always use corruption or raise another volcano on top to get rid of the ore, unfortunately the AI won't do that.

[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?

[Seravy]

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

[Seravy]

New files :

281 - AI can request a declaration of war from the allied player
282 - Refusal of DoW request from AI doesn't break alliance

Also fixed a bug in W274, if you have that patch installed, reapply it.

If file 282 is installed, the player loses 50 relation points for refusing the DoW request from an ally, instead of instantly losing the alliance.

You need to update the DIPLMSG.LBX file for both of these.