Final Fixes Reborn

[Ronkhar]

Hey, me and a friend of mine are trying to play your mod using a Direct IP connection, but it seems very unstable compared to the last Rise of Erebus patch. Is this mod designed to be played online?

Quick answer: Ashes of Erebus should be as stable as RifE 1.41 (no more, no less)

Long answer: OOS have always been a mysterious thing. I don't mean specifically for me, but for lots of knowledgable modders.
Numerous rumors exist on how to find or solve them. But I didn't find any serious tutorial. Even unmodded Civ4 shows its share of OOS.
As far as I know (reading hundreds of posts on this forum), OOS are introduced by coding errors in complex functions, mainly AI code in the DLL.
I'm relatively confident that my modifications have been modest enough that they didn't introduce new errors on this scale. Especially, I didn't change the AI yet.


Don't forget I'm still an "apprentice". 8 months ago, I didn't know anything about civ modding.
--> If you experience OOS and want me to help, please bring some information to help track them down (game options, number of human players and AI, civilizations present ingame, turn number, repeatability of the OOS, savegame...)
PS: did both of you clear the cache recently? (It's one of the rumors I heard; I don't know if it's effective at all.)

 

[Tarnowski]

Hello when I try to start the launcher for Rise of Erebus it never finishes loading the load list in the left corner. I can still launch the game but whence in a game all the religions and events are disabled and I am unable to enable them. How can I fix this

 

[The Flame8]

Try a custom game and loading via "load a mod" from the original startup. Works better for me. In custom game you can go through the options to enable or disable religions...

 

[Pakhawaj]

Quick answer: Ashes of Erebus should be as stable as RifE 1.41 (no more, no less)

Long answer: OOS have always been a mysterious thing. I don't mean specifically for me, but for lots of knowledgable modders.
Numerous rumors exist on how to find or solve them. But I didn't find any serious tutorial. Even unmodded Civ4 shows its share of OOS.
As far as I know (reading hundreds of posts on this forum), OOS are introduced by coding errors in complex functions, mainly AI code in the DLL.
I'm relatively confident that my modifications have been modest enough that they didn't introduce new errors on this scale. Especially, I didn't change the AI yet.


Don't forget I'm still an "apprentice". 8 months ago, I didn't know anything about civ modding.
--> If you experience OOS and want me to help, please bring some information to help track them down (game options, number of human players and AI, civilizations present ingame, turn number, repeatability of the OOS, savegame...)
PS: did both of you clear the cache recently? (It's one of the rumors I heard; I don't know if it's effective at all.)

Thanks for your response. I've just cleared my cache and I'll ask her to do the same before we try the save again. Hopefully the issue will be fixed, but if it isn't I'll try to provide more information.

I think it's great that you're carrying on this mod by the way!

 

[Calavente]

Second (and related), the "Master of ____" promotions are not auto-acquire past the first tier. So, Master of Fire and Water, Master of Death and Shadow are auto-acquire once you have FireIII/WaterIII, DeathIII/ShadowIII etc., while Master of Necromancy, which requires Master of Death/Shadow, Chaos/Entopy, Dimensions, is not auto-acquire, but taken as a promotion, as are Destroyer (which requires Necromancy, Elements), Protector, and, god forbid you ever get this, Omnipotent.

Seeing as the unit needs to have ridiculously high levels in order to take these promotions, I think it's better if they're auto-acquire. I have on occasion gotten the prerequisites, but then had to get another 50-100xp just to 'promote' the unit to be a master of ___, which is A) infuriating, and B) actually really hard to get that much XP once a unit is really strong.

as those promotions give real strong advantages, having them be difficult to acquire is normal IMO, and is part of the design (that I know for sure)

 

[Ronkhar]

as those promotions give real strong advantages, having them be difficult to acquire is normal IMO, and is part of the design (that I know for sure)

I just used the world builder to see the difficulty of attaining these promotions, and it seems reeaaaaaaaally hard (probably too much)

List of promotions needed for omnipotent:
- 60 paying levels in magic (3 levels for 20 magic schools, we don't consider metamagic)
- 12 free 1st lvl masteries
- 4 paying 2nd level masteries (alteration, divination, elements, necromancy)
- 2 paying 3rd lvl masteries (protector, destroyer)
- 1 paying 4th lvl mastery (omnipotent)
sum of levels: 60+4+2+1=67

Of course, some of the promotions can be gained for free at the beginning thanks to duplicate mana nodes.
Reminder:
- If the player has 2 nodes of a sort, he has 1st level for free.
- If the player has 3 nodes of a sort, he has levels 1&2 for free.

Let's say the player has 12 mana when he creates the adept/future archmage (plus the 3 of the palace)
Best case, that's 3 nodes of 5 types --> 10 magic levels for free.
That make the omnipotence attainable at level 57 minimum

Conclusion: If the player doesn't spend any single point on "unnecessary upgrades" (strength, mobility, healing, spell extension, "Resist X", twincast), he will get an omnipotent archmage at level:
- 67 without any mana node at unit's creation
- 57 with 12 mana nodes (+palace=3*5types) at unit's creation
- 51 with 21 mana nodes (+palace=3*8types) at unit's creation --> 840 xp for a charismatic leader

With Blazenclaw's proposition (aka all masteries for free), the numbers would come down to
- 60 without any mana node at unit's creation --> 1008 xp for a charismatic leader
- 50 with 12 mana nodes (+palace=3*5types) at unit's creation
- 44 with 21 mana nodes (+palace=3*8types) at unit's creation --> 708 xp for a charismatic leader

Q1) Did anyone already manage it without cheating?
Q2) Does anyone think it's doable (setller level, huge map, and artificial farming excluded)?
Q3) Did I miss something? (yes, I know, govannon can help amurite mages to get their tier1 mage spells, and calabim mages can farm cities)


PS: still testing

 

[Blazenclaw]

Q1) Did anyone already manage it without cheating?
Q2) Does anyone think it's doable (setller level, huge map, and artificial farming excluded)?
Q3) Did I miss something? (yes, I know, govannon can help amurite mages to get their tier1 mage spells, and calabim mages can farm cities)

I got upwards of 500xp on two separate archmages (at the same time) playing as Lord D'tesh, who has a bunch of arcane promotions (just as much if not more so than most of the Amurites). However, to do so I had to aim for it from the very beginning, basically using only these two units to destroy all of the Malakim, Ljosalfar AND Grigori civs (in that order, so that I killed lots of high-level adventurers which can give sometimes up to 30xp/victory each), ensuring my units had dark empowerment for every combat, that they were lead by a general with the leadership and healing promotions, etc. But in order to do so, I had to give the arcane units strength/twincast/cannibalism promotions to make them able to beat stronger units, which makes the final level requirement jump even higher.

Another thing is that I'm pretty sure summon unit kills don't give XP to the caster. While spells like Air II, wither, etc damage units without killing them which allows the caster to take the XP by winning against weakened units, if the caster is weak but uses summons to kill enemy units, they're going to have a very hard time getting XP. Would it make sense if casters received some percent of the XP that summoned units receive? Say, XP/L, where L is the higher of either say 4, or the casters level. That way, once casters are high level (archmages, etc) and can take on units by themselves, they get a lot less XP from summons which can win an unlikely victory and get 10 or more XP. On the other side, when they're low level, they also can't immediately upgrade to archmage through a few unlikely wins at low cost to themselves.

In the end though, however you want to get XP, it takes time; you can't build the adept to start this process when you have 12 mana nodes, because by the time, even if you rush, other civs have much stronger units (swordsmen, archers and longbowmen etc) instead of the weaker warriors and hunters which your adepts can level up off of. To answer your question, I've never gotten above one, maybe 2, of the tier 2 masteries without worldbuilder, and really don't think it's doable to get the 800odd XP needed without playing a game entirely for that purpose (which isn't really that fun).

As for missing something, there is a module called Fall Under that I often use, that gives the Amurites an upgrade to mana nodes (besides a bunch of arguably OP stuff). This building essentially gives the rank 1 promotion for a spell to a unit standing on it, so you can get the rank 1 promotion after getting the node, not having to build the unit afterwords. That way, you can give arcane units strength promotions to level them up to mages, while picking up as many free lvl 1 spells as possible, so that their mages have both spells AND strength. Perfectly, that'd reduce the level requirement by 17 (-20 but + 3 to level an adept to mage) if you have all types of mana, which I think would make it possible.

I kinda like it as it makes the Amuites even more of a magic race than others. As is they basically have stronger units and some additional abilities, but aren't particularly playstyle different. With Fall Under, they're really something to behold. There are some XML errors when trying to load Fall Under onto versions of RifE past 1.3 or Ashes, though they don't seem to effect gameplay (not extensively tested or understood).

Anyway, that's just my two cents. I have finals this week, but after this, my freakishly-early-starting winter break will allow me to really start typing stuff for the pedia.

Has anyone else tried playing for the arcane promotion tier? Have any stories/experience?

 

[Erikulum]

Quick answer: Ashes of Erebus should be as stable as RifE 1.41 (no more, no less)

Long answer: OOS have always been a mysterious thing. I don't mean specifically for me, but for lots of knowledgable modders.
Numerous rumors exist on how to find or solve them. But I didn't find any serious tutorial. Even unmodded Civ4 shows its share of OOS.
As far as I know (reading hundreds of posts on this forum), OOS are introduced by coding errors in complex functions, mainly AI code in the DLL.
I'm relatively confident that my modifications have been modest enough that they didn't introduce new errors on this scale. Especially, I didn't change the AI yet.


Don't forget I'm still an "apprentice". 8 months ago, I didn't know anything about civ modding.
--> If you experience OOS and want me to help, please bring some information to help track them down (game options, number of human players and AI, civilizations present ingame, turn number, repeatability of the OOS, savegame...)
PS: did both of you clear the cache recently? (It's one of the rumors I heard; I don't know if it's effective at all.)

There's a python code called OOSlogger that seem to be used for data gathering purpose, it generate a log file when the game go out of sync. I'll try using it next time I play a multiplayer game (will take some time). Me and my friend have so much OOS we have to play in hotseat.

 

[Mordax_Praet]

Hey, me and a friend of mine are trying to play your mod using a Direct IP connection, but it seems very unstable compared to the last Rise of Erebus patch. Is this mod designed to be played online?

Use a VPN program, Hamachi or Tunngle works

On the subject of Omniscience, maybe the Grigori can do it with Adventurers and Sidequesting.

 

[Tarnowski]

Try a custom game and loading via "load a mod" from the original startup. Works better for me. In custom game you can go through the options to enable or disable religions...

I have tried loading the mod from the base game and I still have the same problem. Even with all the options changed, there are still no religions and events. Also in the Victory Conditions tab under Settings It says DEBUG: Disable events and a list of all the disabled religions

 

[The Flame8]

Is the disable events option checked in the custom game menu? That can cause that...

(I'm just throwing ideas out there)

 

[Erikulum]

On the subject of Omniscience, maybe the Grigori can do it with Adventurers and Sidequesting.

Sidequesting can only give xp up to 100, that's level 10 still a long way to go

 

[Dunpeal]

Has anyone else tried playing for the arcane promotion tier? Have any stories/experience?

I tried with the Elohim though I never managed to achieve any of the masteries because I would dual focus on spells and strength. Not sure if it is meant to have like two archmages focusing solely on fireballs or something. Anyway, my suggestion is that the prerequisites are toned down and, if necessary, the masteries are also toned down.

I believe the masteries are OP and if achievable as they are, for non magic civs, could spell doom for them (see, "spell doom" )... unless they control all the reagents on the map hehe

 

[Calavente]

Q1) Did anyone already manage it without cheating?
Q2) Does anyone think it's doable (setller level, huge map, and artificial farming excluded)?
Q3) Did I miss something? (yes, I know, govannon can help amurite mages to get their tier1 mage spells, and calabim mages can farm cities)


PS: still testing

for me, the issue is not with getting the whole mastery.. but of getting the level 2 mastery. it is already very strong.
it means that getting level III in water, can give me up to 3 promotions ??? water III, master of fire and water, and master of elements;
if those promotions gave minute bonus, why not... but the bonus given to them is strong... so having it for free is dangerous IMO
I have been able, more often than not, to have at least the level 2 promotion. (master of elements - level)

the protector / destructor, never.
however I almost never focused on getting that. (I tried to level my unit in a coherent manner, but not too much).

lets crunch some numbers.

let say adpet at 4 mana (3palace +1 node):
2earth or 2 fire : lvl1 fire, or water or earth..., let say fire
free promotion earth1, or ice 1, then 3 levels : (mobility, spell extension 1, combat 1, if possible lvl 1 in the same mastery: earth, or ice as remain). you are level 4:

updgrade to mage 3 mana 3 palace, +3 (use a terraforming mage to go use metamagic and get: 3 air node)=> free air 2, and using free promotion : fire 2.
we are, at level 4, at : Air2, Fire2, earth1, ice1 (mobility C1 .. or 2 spheres of other mastery path)

2 level to get ; earth 2, ice 2 : you are level 6
upgrade to ARCHMAGE, with 4 mana nodes : 3palace +4 : take 4 water nodes==> free water III. +1 free promotion : Fire III.
level 6 : Fire III, Water III, Earth II, AirII.. ice II and automatic master of fire and water.
+2 promotion (level 8): Earth III, Air III : Master of Air and Earth.
+1 promotion (level 9): ice III
level 10 .. take Master of elements. ==> 82 xp for a NON-CHARIMSATIC leader
(any grigori adept can get here very easily.. and for others, it is not much harder than being archmage.)

so it is really as "easy", with a little planning, AND ONLY 4 MANA NODES, without being charismatic, to get 4 School-Mastery Archmages.
those are STRONG.

Getting SUCH an unit at less than 100xp is already a bit OP. Please do not give School-level mastery for free

it should not be easy to get this strong.

However, you are right, getting a SECOND School-mastery is very hard :

let say, that using the 2 "upgrading levels" toward mage, instead of combat/spell extension, you got : death 1, and shadow 1.
"only" 4 promotions for master of death and shadow, then 6 promotions/levels, for master of chaos-entropy, and 3 more for dimensional and 1 for Master of Necromancy:
total : 14 promotions : level 24 : 530 xp.. a tad much. (and 577 to get Destructor).

however, being amurits and using GOVANON, you get free levels : 3 levels less to get: 442 xp to be a Destructor.

If destructor is free : 401 xp for an amurite to become a Destructor..

But as a Destructor is a little bit game breaking.. it's normal it should be hard to get.


And As A Side note ... i'm note sure one is supposed to be able in any normal game to become omnipotent.
Already, Destructor and Protector are neat tricks for the one that got lucky or worked a bit for it.
(and destroyer and Protector ARE really powerful.. their name is not just for show).

IMO Omnipotent is for very specific situations:
-when you aimed for it, AND got lucky...

-play Marathon on huge map (Marathon for more raising the chances of xp.. (marathon increases the number of "actions per tech", so increases the relative xp you gained in total.. so increase the xp in 1 unit if you don't lose it).

free promotions
- get many manas , 10+ nodes+ those from the rites of ogma + some free mana from religions and unique features, + 3palace, + a few from vassals or trade),

xp

- get a adventurer into the adept path to get 100 free xp,
- get a lawIII archmage for support to give you valor, and a Great General for +1str +1xp ;
- follow a Warlord for improved odds and better xp.
- be grigory, or amurite or Bannor or Calabim.
__ grigory for a certainty of an adventurer, + chances for exploration
__ amurite for govannon and (iirc), some increased chances of mana sources. and increased xp through cave of ancestors)
__ Bannor for the bannor chain of command : (can arcane unit become at least colonel ??? having colonel(or capitain) and a warlord on top + 6-10 units fighting and giving you xp for fighting might really be worth the expenditure of 2-3 promotions.
__ Calabim for feasting (edit)

-be charismatic so you reduce this huge xp amount by a lot

combat odds for (again) more xp:
- becoming a lich so you get more str.
- get a rod of air or of fire, and Orthus axe to give you much str and blitz,
- have the timor mask so ennemy never attack you,
- use much support units to improve your odds: earth1, haste, regeneration, dance of blades, blur...etc,
- get the school masteries and protector/destructor in to adequate order, they render you unit stronger by much.

oh, and did I mention being lucky ?

some number crunching :

if you have 32 manas.. (ie : a LOT, but attainable on a huge map after rites of Ogma)
you can get.... 2 schools mastery for FREE when upgrading to archmage !.. (1 from free promotion, and 1 more to get)

and as you need 82 xp for the third school mastery is you have 4 more nodes... (see above) (82 xp +2 mastery promotion, for 3 school masteries with 36 mana :122xp)

only 1 school remains to be earned the hard way : 15lvl + 1 school mastery + destroyer and protector + omnipotent :19 more levels : level 30 : 842 xp in total.

getting those 842 xp late game will be very hard. that's for sure.
but IMO, it should be attainable with the afformentionned feats :
let say, with a commander and valor : it is 'only 400 fights with skellies" , with haste, and blitz : it is "only 200 turns".
but you won't fight only skellies, and there are other means to get this xp. (and you can try to kill heros... )

In conclusion:
If you want, you may try to make Omnipotent become easier to get.. (it is already hard to get (but not impossible) even with all the feats I proposed above)
but PLEASE, do not make School mastery much more easy to get.

-here are some proposal to ease Omnipotent, without giving School Mastery for cheap

_make Protector and Destroyer (an omnipotent eventually) be auto-acquire, but not School mastery.
_School Mastery, Protector, Destroyer are to be paid... but each give ... 1, 2 or 3 FREE PROMOTION when you acquire them.: like : 3 free promo for school mastery, 2 for protector and destroyer... thus helping to learn the other schools, but not giving the first one for free.
_open some means to get either XP or some mana promotions (ie level2) for units with a "school mastery" level.
something like : "school master" can "learn" level 1 promotions from mages having level 2
"Protector /destroyer" can "learn" level 2 promotions from archmages/druids that know the level 3
_Protector/destroyer can "destroy/ seal" a mana node in exchange for learning the 3 levels of the sphere ; loses the Protector/destroyer promotion (needs to re-buy it: get 3 promotions for the price of 1)
_School Master can "destroy/ seal" a mana node in exchange for learning the first 2 levels (not losing promotion).
_Schools Master can learn a full level 3 of a sphere by converting to a faith (then cannot convert anymore; need to pray on the holy Shrine)
_university can teach levels 1-3 of a sphere to school masters; can only be used once per university (which transforms into a UU: university without the teaching).

...Etc

Hope it helps. (really, really, you shouldn't allow the first school mastery to be even one tiny winy bit easier)

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

I don't think I've ever gotten Omnipotent in a game that wasn't already won, except once as Calabim. Mostly play on Emperor, Epic, Standard, Increasing Difficulty, with various other options depending on mood.

That said, almost every game, I've had at least one and usually two School masteries on one or more Archmages. The key, if you want to go down that path, is getting Master of Law and Sun ASAP. +2XP/combat, +150% (Valor, MoLaS, Great Commander bonus) means that even 99.9% victories grant you a large chunk of XP. Orthus' Axe also speeds things up considerably. You'll also want AoE direct damage spells (Maelstrom mages, Subdued Drakes) or collateral damage spells (Fireballs/Meteors/Shooting Stars) to reduce all combat to near-guaranteed victories.

 

[Ghostslayer]

Q1) Did anyone already manage it without cheating?
Q2) Does anyone think it's doable (setller level, huge map, and artificial farming excluded)?
Q3) Did I miss something? (yes, I know, govannon can help amurite mages to get their tier1 mage spells, and calabim mages can farm cities)

To achieve that, the mage must be built as late as possible to benefit from a large number of mana nodes, and this pushes to use an amurite city to build an adept with many XP. To increase experience feasting is the easiest way and calabim is probably the better civ for that. And charismatic helps a lot.

This way, I succeeded once to get the omnipotence mastery.
It was
- as calabim
- with a no longer existing leader (don't remender his name) that was charismatic and tolerant (among other traits that made him OP and he was removed from the game)
- the build was done in a captured Amurite city
- I was running AV and STW and I had a super large city that could be feasted for 40 exp point per turns (it was before the town growth was health nerfed and I had an army of adepts with life 1 to maintain the terrain uncorrupted)
- and of course I had many mana nodes and some vassals that were kind enough to give me some of their mana...

I think it required maybe 400 ou 500 XP. It was definitely not required to win the game, but it was a fun challenge. And it was difficult, but doable.

Anyway, besides the challenging aspect, I do not think that mastery is really interesting. Omnipotent mages are completely OOP (+7 or 8 str, +2 moves, blitz, double spell, etc), with a set of very powerful spells. They can probably destroy complete civs alone in some turns. And gaining omnipotence is really a project that drives the complete build.

I really prefer the approach in Magister mod mod where tier 3 mana spheres are more powerful. Frequently they give access to two spells and have a passive effect (+str, grant XP from minions, give HN to minion, etc).

 

[A Moon]

Regarding omnipotence:
The dev team knew the whole mastery dealy was a bit off. It was planned for the magic system to be re-worked, and a side-effect of the changes would have been for the omnipotence et all to become unobtainable, and they would have removed.

 

[Blazenclaw]

for me, the issue is not with getting the whole mastery.. but of getting the level 2 mastery. it is already very strong.
it means that getting level III in water, can give me up to 3 promotions ??? water III, master of fire and water, and master of elements;
if those promotions gave minute bonus, why not... but the bonus given to them is strong... so having it for free is dangerous IMO
I have been able, more often than not, to have at least the level 2 promotion. (master of elements - level)

Just this by itself I don't think is so terrible I think. I look at it as "Master of XXX" being the 'reward' for getting that WaterIII spell you don't really want. I mean, the difference between elementals isn't really so much that you really want all of them- an archmage able to summon a Fire Elemental and also able to cast support spells is more useful than an archmage who can summon a Fire, Water, Earth, and Air elemental. However, the mage who instead focuses on magic rather than what's most useful gains the accompanying School Mastery, and a large bonus. This by itself isn't particularly bad I think. However, your next point is more interesting.

lets crunch some numbers.

let say adpet at 4 mana (3palace +1 node):
2earth or 2 fire : lvl1 fire, or water or earth..., let say fire
free promotion earth1, or ice 1, then 3 levels : (mobility, spell extension 1, combat 1, if possible lvl 1 in the same mastery: earth, or ice as remain). you are level 4:

updgrade to mage 3 mana 3 palace, +3 (use a terraforming mage to go use metamagic and get: 3 air node)=> free air 2, and using free promotion : fire 2.
we are, at level 4, at : Air2, Fire2, earth1, ice1 (mobility C1 .. or 2 spheres of other mastery path)

2 level to get ; earth 2, ice 2 : you are level 6
upgrade to ARCHMAGE, with 4 mana nodes : 3palace +4 : take 4 water nodes==> free water III. +1 free promotion : Fire III.
level 6 : Fire III, Water III, Earth II, AirII.. ice II and automatic master of fire and water.
+2 promotion (level 8): Earth III, Air III : Master of Air and Earth.
+1 promotion (level 9): ice III
level 10 .. take Master of elements. ==> 82 xp for a NON-CHARIMSATIC leader
(any grigori adept can get here very easily.. and for others, it is not much harder than being archmage.)

so it is really as "easy", with a little planning, AND ONLY 4 MANA NODES, without being charismatic, to get 4 School-Mastery Archmages.
those are STRONG.

Getting SUCH an unit at less than 100xp is already a bit OP. Please do not give School-level mastery for free

it should not be easy to get this strong.

This is a really clever way of getting lots of free promotions that I hadn't thought of. That being said, it has a couple of pitfalls. First, you can only start the process once you've researched Sorcery, have a MetamagicII mage and several adepts for the sole purpose of rebuilding nodes, in order to get the first several free promotions (unless you're really, really lucky which we're discounting). I.E., you're starting mid-game, and unable to really rush with it, as defenders will be stronger than your mages. Then, for each upgrade from adept to mage to archmage, you need to be changing your nodes, which take time and careful effort. While it may be 'easy', it's not simple, and your game must be carefully structured to get this single unit the correct promotions at the correct time.

That being said, it really is startlingly overpowered (I'd call it an exploit?). To fix it (if we can), look at the facts it relies upon:

1. A unit upgrade applies the multiple mana = free promotion effect.
2. Free promotions go as high as level 3.
3. A unit can still cast spells/gain mastery without the corresponding mana types.
4. Mana nodes can be altered an arbitrary number of times.

Regardless of how we decide if the School Mastery if free or not, I think this is a more important underlying problem (though, not to the average player).

By breaking any of the above list, the exploit breaks down to less of a problem. However, these potential fixes are not necessarily easy to implement/balance. If we're talking about revamping the magic system a bit, I think the best solution would be to fix the quick-achieving school mastery exploit/technique in such a way that the school mastery is still auto-acquire, after you've put lots of effort into the unit, not the building of it. So, for the moment, I agree that the first school mastery tier should not be made auto-acquire.

As for your thoughts on Omnipotent, I really liked the first couple.

-here are some proposal to ease Omnipotent, without giving School Mastery for cheap

_make Protector and Destroyer (an omnipotent eventually) be auto-acquire, but not School mastery.
_School Mastery, Protector, Destroyer are to be paid... but each give ... 1, 2 or 3 FREE PROMOTION when you acquire them.: like : 3 free promo for school mastery, 2 for protector and destroyer... thus helping to learn the other schools, but not giving the first one for free.
_open some means to get either XP or some mana promotions (ie level2) for units with a "school mastery" level.
something like : "school master" can "learn" level 1 promotions from mages having level 2
"Protector /destroyer" can "learn" level 2 promotions from archmages/druids that know the level 3

I think these or some subset thereof is powerful enough to make omnipotent/Protector/Destroyer not a "you will win the game before you get this" type of thing. Ideally, the mage line is something that you have to focus on and neglect other things, so you might be losing a war or economy, but then you can pull this ace and win, as opposed to the "I'm winning anyway, may as well try for this" that it is right now.

 

[Calavente]

This is a really clever way of getting lots of free promotions that I hadn't thought of. That being said, it has a couple of pitfalls. First, you can only start the process once you've researched Sorcery, have a MetamagicII mage and several adepts for the sole purpose of rebuilding nodes, in order to get the first several free promotions (unless you're really, really lucky which we're discounting). I.E., you're starting mid-game, and unable to really rush with it, as defenders will be stronger than your mages. Then, for each upgrade from adept to mage to archmage, you need to be changing your nodes, which take time and careful effort. While it may be 'easy', it's not simple, and your game must be carefully structured to get this single unit the correct promotions at the correct time.

That being said, it really is startlingly overpowered (I'd call it an exploit?). To fix it (if we can), look at the facts it relies upon:

I disagree with you. It is not an exploit.
it is base FFH mechanics, and IMO standard for everybody who plays any FFH modmod other than Master Of Mana.(or at least who followed and read the old strategy tips and forums.. otherwise, why invest in metamagic magic ?)
IMO it is no more exploitative than have spiritual leader upgrade Veil disciple unit toward mage to get free mobility 1 and the enhanced xp gain..

so the standard strategy is :

-always keep near you a node raw until you get sorcery for metamagic.
-always keep at least 1 terraforming adept at home to give him metamagic 1 and then m2
-rebuilding 4 nodes.. takes 8 turns : 4 turns to turn them and then 2turns per node to fix them right using 2adepts and 1 mage. (so neither really long nor complex).

This become "exploitative" only when one takes into account mastery promotions.
otherwise, the micromanagement to realigne in a "constructed way" (ie, with less overlay as possible) all nodes 2-3-6 times depending on your number of adepts / mages / archmages is generally not totally worth it.

however aligning them to get free lvl 3 promotions is worth it so I'm used to do it every time I upgrade a mage to archmage... and same for adept --> mage, I try to have as many triplets as possible, but I go mainly through resource exchanges (get my earth in exchange for you life mana)... as it is quicker.

 

[Blazenclaw]

I disagree with you. It is not an exploit.
it is base FFH mechanics, and IMO standard for everybody who plays any FFH modmod other than Master Of Mana.(or at least who followed and read the old strategy tips and forums.. otherwise, why invest in metamagic magic ?)

...

This become "exploitative" only when one takes into account mastery promotions.

I was referring to the process of changing which mana promotions an arcane unit gets upon each upgrade from adept through archmage. Of course metamagic by itself isn't exploitative, but in using it to get the 82 xp School Mastery, I think it certainly is.

Basically, it feels wrong to me to change many or all of the mana types in an empire just to click 'upgrade' on one unit, then change them back again without some kind of consequence other than 'micromanagement hassle'. Both that, and the AI doesn't know how to do it, so it's another intrinsic advantage to the human player(s).