Caster of Magic II Milestone III Discussion

[Seravy]

This is a list of tasks for Milestone III which still require further discussion and a decision to be made before I can start working on them.
I'll cross out the ones that are already implemented into the alpha (feel free to tell if you disagree with the chosen solution of course)

1. Nonhero normal units gain extra MP from levels.
How much? Current plan is +2 at Veteran, +5 at Elite, possibly +10 at Champion. (no bonus for Regular and Ultra Elite).

2. Spell Blast will either be moved up to rare or its usage by the AI further restricted and Spell of Mastery during Time Stop disabled.
This depends mainly on what we'll see how large games with many opponents and huge landmasses plays out. Spell of Mastery might or might not be a necessity to finish those games in an acceptable amount of time. Either way making Spell Blast usage from the AI less frequent is important with more players around who might have access to it.

3. Outpost destruction by spell effects or conquest isn't currently implemented. It might be worth adding it, or might not.

4. Maybe the AI shouldn't break their treaties in the first 6 turns of making them for any reason (other than the player violating the treaty).
This could prevent the annoying case where the AI begs for a wizard's pact because you are too powerful, then breaks it a few turns later because you have Armageddon in play which eventually forces them to. There is abuse potential in this though as it's basically a "curse the AI's cities for 6 turns for free" card, if you did enough damage to not worry about the retaliation that's coming afterwards. (if it's even coming at all, as you didn't trigger a repeat warning war and your relation score might not be low enough for other kinds of wars.)

5. I'm planning to readd Halfling Bowmen. There is no limit to the number of unit types, and while Slingers are obviously better, sometimes you can't afford to wait for the expensive Fighter's Guild and need a unit immediately.

6. Maybe the starting casting skill and power income could be lowered by about 20-40% to account for the addition of Magic Market and, during this milestone, the new building that adds combat skill of which an early tier version that adds a small amount, and a better one that adds more but is expensive are planned.

7. We might or might not want to enable "Auto" to cast spells.
I think it's bad for the flavor of the game (if you're not leading your armies then who is casting spells?), and can be potentially harmful if the AI plays it too well so it definitely needs to be dumber down massively if allowed. It might be annoying to click through three dialog boxes as well (one for confirmation of enabling auto, one to confirm it's not for a single turn, and one to allow spells)

8. Might be nice to get a diplomacy bonus when dispelling from or spell blasting mutual enemies.

9. Currently Vertigo is rendered without transparency. I'm not sure if this looks better or worse than the original.

10. Surveyor only shows terrain bonus now. Any bonus from buildings while looking at a city tile is not included.
I do think this makes better sense (as the surveyor shows you terrain information) but the original game had it included.

11. Death Demons
These were a workaround for an unsolvable issue : summoning into certain unit slots made it impossible for the unit to be a Caster. I'm not sure if we want to keep them as a feature, or revert to the originally intended version of all Demons being a "caster 40" unit.

12. It's now possible to add more effects Mystic Surge can grant, including things that don't exist as a spell, such as "teleportation" or "Doom gaze" etc.

13. Charmed prevents failing resistance rolls. Disintegrate check resistance without making a roll. Following that logic it should ignore Charmed.

14. It might be interesting to give a diplomacy bonus for dispelling curses from cities of other wizards, as long as those curses weren't cast by you. Currently you can't target enemy cities with Disenchant Area to do so.

15. Pandora's Box rules have been changed slightly. Do you prefer the new rules or not?
(New rules give a 50% chance to activate the ability per turn per unit, and at most one unit can activate it each turn.)

16. Blazing March does not buff Fire Breath and or Lightning Breath, maybe it should.
I honestly don't remember if this was ever discussed or not, maybe we decided not to years ago.

17. Not sure where to put the "Info" button but definitely not where it is now. That place will have a "win/lose" button that allows you to end the game (either my retiring, of if you already triggered a surrender from other players then by winning the game instantly.)

18. Chaos Channels doesn't show a chaos enchantment aura, keep as is or change?

19. End of month report could show dispelled global enchantments. (possibly requiring Detect Magic to do so)

20. What if higher difficulty AI got more swordsmen spawned in new outposts? (or maybe even bowmen)
Might be unnecessary as the AI should summon units there to defend the city, assuming it knows Summoning Circle.

21. The original magic Vortex wasn't allowed to turn more than 90 degrees between each tile of movement. Do we want to reimplement this feature, or keep the movement random?

22. The original game has 3 different graphics for city walls in the LBX. Did anyone pay attention to which one is being show when, or do we want to define our own rule for this?

23. Would be nice to have an "ok" button to leave the Wizards and Cities screens but no idea where to put them. Esc on the keyboard works but pretty much everything is doable with a mouse in the game so there shouldn't be exceptions.

24. AI wizards are will be forbidden from warping nodes they haven't discovered yet by having a unit in scouting range during the course of the game (similarly to city curses) in tomorrow's uploaded alpha.
This restriction does not apply to sending spirits to those nodes, as the AI will only do so if the node is no further than 10 (12? Don't remember.) tiles from their nearest city as a separate feature already added earlier.
Should I restrict the AI from sending spirits to unguarded nodes near their territory anyway? I'm afraid it might encourage leaving the nodes undefended way too much, especially in the early game, when land troops are much less likely to have landed on the player's continent to occupy the node (and generally move too slow to actually do it.).
On the other hand, putting a single Spearmen on the node isn't much of a defense anyway and if people get used to not doing that, the AI might actually get the troops there after which you can't simply send your own spirits to toggle it back and send the spearmen that was forgotten earlier.
Please note that the AI does not scout intentionally. The only way they'll discover the node is if they accidentally move nearby or had a reason to go there - the node is unguarded and either land troops are available to occupy it or a spirit can be summoned and sent from the AI's nearby city. So denying the second option might make the AI not find the node at all.

[MrBiscuits]

1. I would say a simple +3 per level would work best. 

4. Maybe make it 10 turns.

6. This seems like it would slow down the start quite a lot, especially for races that can't build a magic market. If you did reduce it you could increase the book bonus for mana and casting skill, as I remember you saying that retorts were more powerful and this would balance it slightly (and possibly allow you to pick as many retorts as you like again).

12. Could mystic surge also contain curses too? I've not really thought it through, but it might be interesting.

16. Yes sounds like a good idea.

18. Yes please, it's annoying to have to check each individual unit for CC when trying to buff them. As an aside, if the list view where you click the unit to buff them could show the current buffs in a list, then that would be very useful. (also could you add resistance to the stats that are displayed in that view?).

20. Yes if it means that they don't get such large bonuses to everything else.

[massone]

2. Spell Blast will either be moved up to rare or its usage by the AI further restricted and Spell of Mastery during Time Stop disabled.
This depends mainly on what we'll see how large games with many opponents and huge landmasses plays out. Spell of Mastery might or might not be a necessity to finish those games in an acceptable amount of time. Either way making Spell Blast usage from the AI less frequent is important with more players around who might have access to it.

In general, I dislike the the idea of the AI restricting themselves, so moving to rare would be preferable, unless we can think of some other way to add a condition to using Spell Blast so not everyone can spam it.

3. Outpost destruction by spell effects or conquest isn't currently implemented. It might be worth adding it, or might not.

Destruction by overland spell effects would be very annoying and indefensible. Conquest isn't a terrible idea, but I can't see any real reason it'd be better than destroying all outposts, when it's easy enough to just wait until the outpost is a village to conquer it.

4. Maybe the AI shouldn't break their treaties in the first 6 turns of making them for any reason (other than the player violating the treaty).
This could prevent the annoying case where the AI begs for a wizard's pact because you are too powerful, then breaks it a few turns later because you have Armageddon in play which eventually forces them to. There is abuse potential in this though as it's basically a "curse the AI's cities for 6 turns for free" card, if you did enough damage to not worry about the retaliation that's coming afterwards. (if it's even coming at all, as you didn't trigger a repeat warning war and your relation score might not be low enough for other kinds of wars.)

Well, I don't like the idea of having a specific knowable guarantee of no treaty break. It's quite clearly an unfair advantage for the player who knows. However, I do think that in instances where there's a diplo penalty being applied from globals like Armageddon, that if the Wizard Pact or Peace Treaty was established after the Global was already in play, the penalty on those particular globals should be reduced/removed for a time. The act of forming any treaty after the negative global is already applied should imply enforced acceptance of the status quo, at least for a while (maybe random, or dependent on military power comparison, when they feel strong enough to overturn the unfair treaty).

5. I'm planning to readd Halfling Bowmen. There is no limit to the number of unit types, and while Slingers are obviously better, sometimes you can't afford to wait for the expensive Fighter's Guild and need a unit immediately.

Well, I'd like to say I'm looking forward to this one as I like the idea of trying out a more aggressive Life-Sorcery HA, but I suspect this might make the build completely dominate as it shores up the sole debilitating weakness it has early on, allowing it to take nodes early on top of the RP output that already matches the power output of the most aggressive node strategies. But that's also a pretty narrow case, and I think most Halfling players would appreciate having a decent ranged unit earlier. I've had lots of games where I helplessly watched my garrisons of swordsmen get wiped out by stacks I could've easily dealt with if only I had a single bowmen.

6. Maybe the starting casting skill and power income could be lowered by about 20-40% to account for the addition of Magic Market and, during this milestone, the new building that adds combat skill of which an early tier version that adds a small amount, and a better one that adds more but is expensive are planned.

The impact on higher difficulties might be disproportionately large as the AI bonuses are relatively much greater early on.

7. We might or might not want to enable "Auto" to cast spells.
I think it's bad for the flavor of the game (if you're not leading your armies then who is casting spells?), and can be potentially harmful if the AI plays it too well so it definitely needs to be dumber down massively if allowed. It might be annoying to click through three dialog boxes as well (one for confirmation of enabling auto, one to confirm it's not for a single turn, and one to allow spells)

Well, quick combat does use spells, so from a flavor perspective it doesn't seem too much of a stretch. But then again, if you're putting the entire battle on full auto, why not just use quick combat instead? Seems to me like a lot of work that would be better spent improving the quick combat to get more accurate calculations.

8. Might be nice to get a diplomacy bonus when dispelling from or spell blasting mutual enemies.

Yes.

10. Surveyor only shows terrain bonus now. Any bonus from buildings while looking at a city tile is not included.
I do think this makes better sense (as the surveyor shows you terrain information) but the original game had it included.

I think it does make sense, though I'll miss the convenience of seeing the total. Are you planning to show the total anywhere else?

13. Charmed prevents failing resistance rolls. Disintegrate check resistance without making a roll. Following that logic it should ignore Charmed.

Yes. To prevent any complaints, a warning about this should probably be placed somewhere. Like "This doesn't work on effects that only check resistance instead of making a Resistance Roll!" (for Charmed) or "Charmed provides no resistance against this effect" (for Disintegrate).

14. It might be interesting to give a diplomacy bonus for dispelling curses from cities of other wizards, as long as those curses weren't cast by you. Currently you can't target enemy cities with Disenchant Area to do so.

Great idea.

16. Blazing March does not buff Fire Breath and or Lightning Breath, maybe it should.
I honestly don't remember if this was ever discussed or not, maybe we decided not to years ago.

The description in the manual now seems little different from what I remember of the in-game tooltip. Wasn't it supposed to affect all Fire based attacks and buffs instead of giving melee and ranged to all? It seems plenty strong by the current description. If there is a fire theme, then yes it should buff Fire Breath. Not sure about Lightning.

18. Chaos Channels doesn't show a chaos enchantment aura, keep as is or change?

Definitely add.

19. End of month report could show dispelled global enchantments. (possibly requiring Detect Magic to do so)

Yes, requiring Detect Magic. In fact, better to show all new globals and major overland spells too (like Great Unsummoning). This is mostly for convenience to afk through the long AI turns later on and come back to quickly review on your own turn.

Actually, I think it might be even more interesting if Globals weren't shown at all without Detect Magic. Would add more uncertainty and relevance for Detect Magic (or some other new espionage feature).

20. What if higher difficulty AI got more swordsmen spawned in new outposts? (or maybe even bowmen)
Might be unnecessary as the AI should summon units there to defend the city, assuming it knows Summoning Circle.

If you add more, I think best to add bowmen than swordsmen. Even more swordsmen is just fodder for Death undead, and only barely slows down any other realm when the swordsmen are unbuffed.

[Seravy]

But then again, if you're putting the entire battle on full auto, why not just use quick combat instead? Seems to me like a lot of work that would be better spent improving the quick combat to get more accurate calculations.

I want to keep quick combat and normal combat separated because no matter how accurate I make quick combat, it'll still use different rules and provide different results.

[ksasaki]

5. I'm planning to readd Halfling Bowmen. There is no limit to the number of unit types, and while Slingers are obviously better, sometimes you can't afford to wait for the expensive Fighter's Guild and need a unit immediately.

IMO halflings were already pretty overpowered before, why are we focused on adding units to one of the most powerful races, rather focus on the weaker ones (IMO).

Gnolls, I feel they really get the short end of the stick, and really need a makeover.  They are basically low resistance all out attack guys that can get easily dented by confusion / black sleep.  Can't attack air and their city defense is questionable at best and will almost inevitably have a lot of trouble against status afflicting units like nagas cockatrices or chaos spawns.  Their economy is also weak.  They need some kind of decent city defender, maybe shamans or some kind of witch doctor, because they have no survivability (after all, you added saints for draconians who also suffer a similar issue with fragile units).

[Seravy]

IMO halflings were already pretty overpowered before, why are we focused on adding units to one of the most powerful races, rather focus on the weaker ones (IMO).

Because the halfling bowmen unit already exists and doesn't need to be created.

Gnolls have been playtested and they worked fine.

I do think Halflings have a bit too many themes going on however, and I think it will be a good idea to split them into two races later :

Race 1 : keep food bonus, units, lucky, enable barracks, low interracial unrest modifiers, basically what we used to have in the original, a race meant for conquest mainly through buffed units or summoned creatures, and good lategame economy potential.
Race 2 : research bonus moved here, probably doesn't need lucky, units similar to halflings (as in, bad at melee, good at ranged), no food bonus, no barracks, average interracial modifiers, possibly better growth rates than halflings. This could be the "research while staying on defense" peaceful race.

However, this requires designing the new races and we'll need to actually create art for the new units for the non-halfling one. So it's not trivial.

Edit : I think it's best to open a new thread for that, so I will do so.

[Seravy]

Well, I don't like the idea of having a specific knowable guarantee of no treaty break. It's quite clearly an unfair advantage for the player who knows. However, I do think that in instances where there's a diplo penalty being applied from globals like Armageddon, that if the Wizard Pact or Peace Treaty was established after the Global was already in play, the penalty on those particular globals should be reduced/removed for a time. The act of forming any treaty after the negative global is already applied should imply enforced acceptance of the status quo, at least for a while (maybe random, or dependent on military power comparison, when they feel strong enough to overturn the unfair treaty).

That sounds like a perfect solution, I'll add it in today's update.

[Seravy]

Added 23, 24 and removed already implemented stuff.

[roarmalf]

7. We might or might not want to enable "Auto" to cast spells.
I think it's bad for the flavor of the game (if you're not leading your armies then who is casting spells?), and can be potentially harmful if the AI plays it too well so it definitely needs to be dumber down massively if allowed. It might be annoying to click through three dialog boxes as well (one for confirmation of enabling auto, one to confirm it's not for a single turn, and one to allow spells)

I love the idea of making this an option in settings. "Auto-battle w/ spells"

Personally when I click auto it's to speed up a battle that requires no thought. Just shoot/hit the other guys until they fall. On the other hand I can see other players wanting a more tactical auto option, so it might be nice as an option.

[Jtm]

10. Surveyor only shows terrain bonus now. Any bonus from buildings while looking at a city tile is not included.
I do think this makes better sense (as the surveyor shows you terrain information) but the original game had it included.

I think it does make sense, though I'll miss the convenience of seeing the total. Are you planning to show the total anywhere else?

Agreed that Seravy's suggestion makes sense. I don't remember if the original game included seeing the total for enemy cities as well or not, but I think you should only see the total for your own cities. Would it work if you could see the total of your own cities in ()-brackets while it would not show bracketed part for the enemy cities?

18. Chaos Channels doesn't show a chaos enchantment aura, keep as is or change?

Definitely add.

I vote for adding as well.

19. End of month report could show dispelled global enchantments. (possibly requiring Detect Magic to do so)

Yes, requiring Detect Magic. In fact, better to show all new globals and major overland spells too (like Great Unsummoning). This is mostly for convenience to afk through the long AI turns later on and come back to quickly review on your own turn.

Actually, I think it might be even more interesting if Globals weren't shown at all without Detect Magic. Would add more uncertainty and relevance for Detect Magic (or some other new espionage feature).

I agree on requiring Detect Magic for this. I agree with massone's addition (of new globals and major overland spells). His second idea is also interesting, but perhaps it could be enabled from the game settings later on?