[MOD] MagisterModmod

[Allborii]

I believe there was an issue with the prereqs letting barbarians get free disciples in the last release which I think I fixed on my end a couple months back.



Some more recent changes I have made include:

Getting rid of the multiple summons from affinity spells.

Granting summons from affinity casters better bonus promotions. (Einherjar get Demon Slaying. Pit Beasts get Scavenger. Spectres get Fear. Treants get Forest Stealth and don't require a forest for an affinity caster to summon, and will get other perks based on terrain. Fire elementals get fire affinity, water elementals get water affinity, air elementals get air affinity, earth elementals get earth affinity, Wraths get death affinity. Ice elementals get slow if the caster does not have affinity).

Granting an affinity caster the xp from its dying summons that has the proper mana prerequisite. (Currently they get 100% of the xp, but I am thinking of scaling it down. Maybe 25% per channeling promotion would be better?)

Eliminating the caster's free xp based on Dimensional promotions from summons regardless of their prereqs.

Changing Extension 3 and 4 to be more like Extension 1 and 2, by making them grant Navigation 1 and 2 instead of Blitz and Herald's Blessing respectively.

Changing Extension to require Channeling 4 or Divine and not be limited to Coven units.

Reducing the base movement of the summons who formerly started with 2 movement points, as too many Extension promotions could make them too fast.

Changing most of the delayed casting spells to ordinary immediate casting spells. (I may change this back once lfgr fixes the bug with delayed spells miscasting)

The Without Arda promotion makes Divine casters more likely to miscast when outside of areas where their religion is dominant.

Allowing the Council of Esus priests to attack like other priests.

Ira Unleashed is back to being an Avatar of Wrath specific spell, as I never really thought it fit Carnivean.

Chaos 4 is now Mutation, which not only grants the Mutated promotion (and the various random promotions it can grant) but also randomly changes the base strength, defensive strength, movement, and damage of all living units (friend and foe) within a 2 tile radius. For each it picks a random number up to double the current value.

Creation 4's golden age does not miscast so often

Earth Affinity is no longer removed by gaining Flying, but Earth spells require ground contact and cannot be used while flying or on water tiles.
Stoneskin grants +3 defensive strength and 1st strike immune instead of +2 defensive strength and 3 first strike chances.
Earth Elementals are a bit stronger.

Death 3 Angels of Death no longer get the Arawn death promotions letting them cast destroy undead, but they start with Divine so they can cast Hallow Graves.

Enchantment 4 Automatons no longer start with Herald's blessing but have a new promotion that makes sure they are Permanent units with no duration limit or per caster limit. Their free affinity based on the tile now works properly.

Force 4 Purge Magic now has a range of 2

Shadow 4 "Summon Changeling" (which summoned multiple limited duration changeling units) was replaced with "Replace with Changeling" (which works like a less resistible version of Domination, which gives you permanent control over a rival unit and gives that unit the Changeling promotion.

Sun 3 Aureales no longer have divine, but those from affinity casters get affinity and can cast blinding light.

Undeath 1 Skeletons no longer start enraged. Undeath Affinity Skeletons no longer start immobilized. (They use the same dummy promotion as Automatons letting me turn a temporary summon into a permanent summon, but their PyPrerequisite still limits the number you may have at once.
Spectres no longer start with Fear, but it is given as a promotion perk for those summoned by casters with Undeath Affinity.
The Raise as Undead spell no longer requires any channeling promotions, but channeling promotions increase its range. (Now that I think of it I may change that to Extension promotions increasing its range.) The spell now requires Undeath Affinity and a Tower of Necromancy. Raise as Undead can be used to gain Barbatos, while Mas Resurrection can be used to get the other Imprimatur Council members.


Sons of Discord no longer has the Discord civic and no longer locks you into war.
Sons of Discord units gain the Rebel promotion when not at war, but this can be removed via an Arena battle.

The Disrupt spell has been fixed to properly work with Agonists and no longer be tied to the Council of Esus/Undercouncil.


I am wondering if the Sons of Discord and Cult of the Dragon mechanics are too similar. I'm tempted to streamline things by eliminating the Dragon Fanatics and Wyvern Riders entirely. The art for just those units (including unique versions for each dragon) take up more space than 10 other new religions combined. I may need more time to think of how I'd most want to implement this cult and so might not change anything before the next release.



I have not had any crashes that asked to generate a dump file and complained a memory leaks since resetting my operating system. The game seems faster and more stable now in general, but I am still getting the occasional crash with no warning or explanation. I've found a fixed a few bugs but I don't think they are relevant to any crashes. I have found that when the AI seems stuck in a loop I most often can use worldbuilder to make their units skip turns rather than having the whole program freeze up.

The ruthless Ai is still really bothering me. I had hoped to include the next MNAI update from lfgr in my next release to stop that, but I think I think I will aim to have something ready to release on my birthday (one week from today) anyway.

Thanks for this, really. Still playing this game and this mod because of your work. No changes appear to be bad. Some more relevant than others, i like the Undeath one, and the other units being modified by terrain is cool and interesting (hope the IA knows, at some degree, to use it properly). The only thing that worries me is the last phrase. I mostly play on Deity, and the AI being "ruthless" sounds sweet to my masochist ears.

 

[Samson]

I have found that when the AI seems stuck in a loop I most often can use worldbuilder to make their units skip turns rather than having the whole program freeze up.

Is this the sort of thing you could point to instructions on how to do? This is usually how may games end, I have tried looking in the logs and nothing is obvious but I do not really know what I am looking for.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Thanks for this, really. Still playing this game and this mod because of your work. No changes appear to be bad. Some more relevant than others, i like the Undeath one, and the other units being modified by terrain is cool and interesting (hope the IA knows, at some degree, to use it properly). The only thing that worries me is the last phrase. I mostly play on Deity, and the AI being "ruthless" sounds sweet to my masochist ears.

Ruthless AI is supposed to be a game option, and will be implemented as a game option in lfgr's next MNAI update, but Tholal implemented it as being always active. It does not make the AI better, just way more aggressive. As in, it makes a lot of players randomly declare war on you even when they are friendly towards you and would benefit economically from maintaining trade agreements and investing in growth before preparing for war. I remember once instances where one player with which I was friendly and at peace bribed 5 other players to declare war on me, and then was bribed by one of them to join the war he instigated. Some of those players were getting their only source of horses and iron from me, as well as a fair amount of gold per turn in a trade agreement from some techs I'd bought from them, and they were too far away to actually reach my units or cities. Being that ruthless is only weakening the AI players and frustrating the human.

Is this the sort of thing you could point to instructions on how to do? This is usually how may games end, I have tried looking in the logs and nothing is obvious but I do not really know what I am looking for.

It wasn't really working in my last release, as the game would tend to become unresponsive while presumably stuck in a loop, but recently I found I could again try an old fix from way back.

(I think this old fix started working again not right after resetting my PC but after I deleted some revolutions related files that had been in my modmod for a long time after noticing that they no longer existed int he latest version of MNAI. I think a lot of times it was revolutions code rather than unit AI code causing problems.)


1 Press Ctrl + W to enter worldbuilder
(That keystroke lets you enter worldbuilder while bypassing the main menu and the confirmation dialog box, which sometimes won't work when stuck in a loop)

2 Under the Player Mode (which is the default when first opening Worldbuilder) press the Units + Cities button

3 In the Units + Cities screen, select whatever player you think is causing the issue.

4 Select a Kill or Skip turn button. You could try to guess what unit is causing the problem and select that specific unit before pressing the skip turn or kill button near the top left of the right half of the screen, but your chances of ending the loop are better if you use the Skip Turn of Kill buttons at the far right of the screen next to the "All #" which applies to every units belonging to that player.

5 if you are not sure what player is causing the issue, repeat steps 3 and 4 for multiple players.

6 Press Ctrl + W again to leave worldbuilder and allow the AI players to complete their turns. Without any units able to do anything, this should not take very long.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Out of curiosity why don't you just distribute the whole mod as opposed to making us jump through hoops to install it on top of FFH? It just strikes me as an unnecessary complication and is honestly the one thing that has kept me from trying this mod for the longest time.

 

[The_Reckoning]

I have found that the AI sometimes fails to thrive. It's turn 260 and one AI left alone in a corner of the map is stuck around 600pts, only building warriors and struggling to push out against the barbarians. Would a bump up to Monarch help?

 

[Nothrazim]

Playing at a higher difficulty definitely help out the AI. I usually play on Emperor or Immortal, occasionally at Deity, but always with Increasing Difficulty on. That helps alleviate some of the massive buffs the AI get in the very early game and ramps them up progressively. Starting at Classical age or removing AI building requirements also means they have an easier time building different units and can go for something that synergizes with their civ or religion instead. At worst, they build stacks of hunters instead of warriors, but it does tend to lead the AI into making more diverse armies.

I've also noticed whoever founds the Runes of Kilmorph tend to become very powerful. The Soldiers of Kilmorph's mobility and defensive strength makes them very powerful, so they tend to build stacks of them instead of warriors.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Is it normal for half the AI players to die relatively quickly at the start of the game? I am not complaining. Just asking simply to make sure if what I experienced is a fluke or if it's deliberate like in say Wildmana.

 

[Nothrazim]

There's a fine line between having enough AI opponents that they can challenge (or ally) you later in the game versus having them be too crowded to function. I tend to play on medium or large map sizes, with 10-18 civs. It's inevitable that some of them will die out - Erebus is just too deadly for all of 'em - but more civs usually means more odds of 1-3 coming out on top. I almost never have Orthus show up either, as he tends to just instantly kill one or two civs then die himself against whichever civ he ran up with that had enouhg bodies.

 

[FireBlaze]

It's kinda fun to loop back around to having them be too crowded to function, because in practice you can end up with a big mix of city states and empires, and pockets of wilderness are more notable overall. But yeah a bunch of AI can die out early depending on the exact map settings, i've even had games where the entire map that wasn't barbarian allied was wiped (though that's a bit more rare). I'd also suggest a difficulty bump (esp rising difficulty), advanced start (if too many civs are dying in the first turns), and turning off AI build and level requirements so they put up better forces ---- beware of midgame AI mage stacks though!

 

[LordNippes]

I played this mod a bit on Monarch difficulty and Orthos just destroyed the Malakim, the Svartalfar then took another city of the Elohim before he reached my city loaded with a stack of 8 warriors and a hunter. Couldn't even damage him. I feel like even if i had archers reseached it wouldn't have changed much. I like Orthos especially his axe but i think he is a bit too strong now or maybe it has to do with the fact that i played on epic game speed and everything was too far behind to deal with him. I don't know if anything changed i don't remember him being such a monster back when i played years ago. I also feel the Svartalfar are very weak, they alway are at the bottom when i have them in my game. It's guess it's because they overdid it with the diversity hire's in their leading positions and army.
Anyway a great mod, glad it's not dead.

 

[Allborii]

Any news for the next update? Im still waiting btw.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It would have been out 5 weeks ago had my father's dementia not taken a turn for the worse. He has been demanding a lot of attention lately. We started in-home hospice on Feb 25th. He had bad falls on Tuesday and Friday, which probably would have been worse had the hospice not taken him off the blood thinners already. His legs don't seem to be able to support his weight anymore, although his arms are still strong and his grip is much stronger than mine. For the past couple days he has seemed unable to feed himself, only to chew and swallow what I place in his mouth.

We will probably have the hospice take him to their Respite care this week, giving us a few days without him around to catch up on things around here, and may need to consider ore permanent inpatient solutions. I don't know how much my brothers would help pay for that though, and know we would have to sell our house to have hope of paying for his care otherwise.

I may be able to get something released later this week, but since I waited this long I was hoping lfgr would release another MNAI update first.

Unfortunately this weekend I started getting those unexplained crashes to desktop again which I thought had been solved by resetting my computer and installing everything fresh back in January.

 

[lfgr]

The MNAI update will need some more time, unfortunately.
I'm really sorry you're in such an awful situation. I don't know what to say except that I wish you the best.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I think I speak for all of us here when I say that you should forget about us and the mod for the time being and take how ever much time you need to both figure out your current situation and get some rest afterward. Your well being is far more important than anything else here.

 

[Nor'easter]

@MagisterCultuum , I haven't tried your modmod, but we've interacted quite a bit in the FfH forums over the years, so wishing you well in what you're dealing with. Completely agree with what @PPQ_Purple said. I've been dealing with my own mom's Alzheimer's these past few years -- take all the time you need and do whatever is best for you and your family. Good luck.

 

[UnderKingDuck]

Maybe im crazy and I am missing something, but I can't seem to build Pirate Coves as the Lanun. Is it locked behind a tech now or something cause I don't see anything in the civilopedia.

 

[crawlers]

@MagisterCultuum I have been playing your mod for a few weeks, and sometimes in a 2 player game. In many ways it seems quite nice of a mod. However, I noticed some issues in balance and when I tried to play multiplayer.

Client Amurites very consistently cause desync whenever a 2nd spell is used by a spellstaff-wielding mage. Haven't tested with host Amurites.

Host player walking into a hellfire with a demon caused desync. This particular hellfire was barbarian owned and came from an even with the infernal tome. Desync happened a second time when I sent in a summoned Balor to try again. I didn't get far enough to test it, but I am worried about the AC 80 event making horrid desync issues as it would really mess up a 4p game I plan to do.

Using a mage with the twincast promotion, I got two copies of Abaddon. Probably this can be used for the other unleash spells too.

Hellfires at AC 80 with advanced tactics enabled are problematic for civilizations friendly to the Infernals, including Ashen Veil civilizations. The hellfires create control which blocks tile use and expansion with settlers, and the Infernal sects of flies cannot be removed, so the only way to fix one's land is to use Life 1 to remove the hellfires. This is problematic for the Sheaim, since removing hellfires in this way reduces AC by 2 and also denies use of them to the city. Without advanced tactics, the Ember Legion temple and the altar of demons building free specialist per hellfire can actually be used from the 80 AC event instead of having to destroy the hellfires. Maybe AV civilizations should get some kind of way to take control of existing hellfires that aren't within the borders of another civilization?

Sheaim planar gate civpedia entry about what building spawns what is horribly out of date compared to what it actually does. It is a guessing game to figure out which buildings spawn things, sometimes you get hints in the civpedia, sometimes not like for the specter from the Arwan temple.

There are a vast array of balance specifics I would like to discuss with you. The current workaround I use of making an ever-lengthening banlist of things one's shouldn't do in a game eventually gets unwieldy. Handling this many details over a forum, while theoretically possible, is not particularly easy. Do you have Steam? This would be ideal for me and I can PM you on how to add me, but if that doesn't work for you I can talk it out here. I understand you are going through some hard times, and so this might not be the ideal moment, but eventually I would like to work things out when you can.

EDIT 3/18: I managed to get friendly balors to spawn when I made a pact, but this is short-lived as the peace with barbarians is short-lived. Sometimes it only lasts a single tujrn. When the balors spawned, they reflagged the hellfire as barbarian even though I owned them, and I could even turn other hellfires I owned barbarian by using these. Infernal hellfires went barbarian if left alone when they spawned a balor, but unlike me (AV sheaim) the infernals could capture hellfires by walking over them whereas I had to wait for them to slowly rebel. I believe the code for advanced tactics has issues here.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

My father passed away on March 10th and was buried on the 20th. I only have mom to take care of now, which requires significantly less effort. I've been able to go back to work this month, when I can get my sister or a neighbor to handle mom's lunch and lunchtime insulin. The SSI survivor's benefits are more than I expected, so we won't need to rush into selling the house like I feared, but it is still good to have some other source of income.

I've just recently gotten back into modding.

The random declarations of war are still way too much, even when I use the Permanent War or Peace or the Always Peace game options. I certainly won't be releasing a new version until the next MNAI update fixed the bug letting AI players bribe everyone else to war while bypassing all checks.

As much time as I spent making custom art for each type of Dragon Fanaic and Wyvern Riders, I don't think I can really justify cluttering the game with so many almost identical units.

Frankly, the Sons of Discord have largely usurped the role of the Cult of the Dragon when it comes to game mechanics.

For now I still kept one dragon fanatic, but got rid of the Wyvern rider entirely. There is really no lore connecting the Wyverns to the cult of the dragon anyway.

(I am considering bringing Wyvern riders back though, not as a CotD unit but as an upgrade for the Wyvern unit that can be created by the Body Affinity IV spell Create Chimeras. I'd want to change the rider so it doesn't look like a dragon cultist first though.)

I'm am not so sure about keeping the various Wyrmholds either. I might just make it so that after Stir from Slumber the CotD allows training the dragons directly without prerequisites other than the proper mana and alignment.



I'm finding the Ringgiver's Create Construct spell and the Construct permanent summon it creates to be really underwhelming and think I will remove them.

I might just go ahead and let them use their current High Priest's spell, Empower Engines, granting all the caster's summon perks to all Golems, naval, and siege units on the stack.

That spell currently also heals those units, but I may remove that feature if I'm making the spell available for a lower tier unit.

Those priests or mages randomly gifted with Enchantment Affinity could still cast Repair.

(It might make more sense to swap the spells though, as Mages could have various spell sphere or affinity promotions have summon perks that would be applied to golems, siege engines, ships, etc. Previous posters in this thread however insisted that Repair ought to be available without needing Ringgiver priests.)

For the Ringgiver's High Priest I am thinking of introducing a new buff spell which grants a promotion to units that lets them upgrade for free (or at least with a significant discount) and do so outside of borders.

(I might go so far as to make this spell representing having the units endure the Suffering to emerge Paragons of Faith, purging them of evil, making the impossible to capture, etc., but that might be too much without its canonical drawbacks like killing most who begin such trials. From a gameplay perspective, having free upgrades for whole stacks of units in the late game is probably a big enough deal already.

At first I was worried this might be not so great for the Luchuirp as their patron god's top spell would not help any of their golems, but if the regular priests have such a good golem-boosting spell then it is probably fine for the high priests to instead let them bypass the economic limitations of upgrading other units, like the mages who will repair those golems.)

I'm also thinking of changing the Ringgiver disciples again. I am currently leaning towards Tinker > Artificer > Instructor.

Maybe im crazy and I am missing something, but I can't seem to build Pirate Coves as the Lanun. Is it locked behind a tech now or something cause I don't see anything in the civilopedia.

That is a bug I already addressed:

The Lanun pirate Cove change is actually an unintentional bug.

I meant to let Pirates Ships build Pirate Ports no matter who owns them, while still letting Lanun Workboats build Pirate Coves that could upgrade to Pirate Harbors and then Pirate Ports.

The problem is that shortly before the release I decided that AI players (of all civs) were spamming way too many Workboats and chose to address this by making Workboats National units, forgetting that the Pirate Cove spell's python prereq contains the lines if isLimitedUnitClass(pCaster.getUnitClassType()):return False.

I had been playing around with letting all Seafaring ships build pirate coves, and added that limit to prevent the Lanun from sacrificing the Black Wind or the Barbarians from sacrificing the Sailor's Dirge. I could have used if isWorldUnitClass(pCaster.getUnitClassType()): to only prevent its used by world units, but I found if isLimitedUnitClass(pCaster.getUnitClassType()): first when looking for another spell prereq from which to copy and paste.

(I switched it back to using the Lanun civ as a prereq instead of the Seafaring promotion because I learned that the AI is hardcoded in the DLL to try to use that spell if it is allowed for that player. The code never checks for other spell prereqs, which meant every player was spamming boats and leaving huge stacks of them on tiles where they thought they could build Coves instead of ever actually using them for fishing boats or whaling boats.)

@MagisterCultuum I have been playing your mod for a few weeks, and sometimes in a 2 player game. In many ways it seems quite nice of a mod. However, I noticed some issues in balance and when I tried to play multiplayer.

I've never played multiplayer and don't consider making it stable for multiplayer games to be a very high priority, but if I can fix it without limiting single player features too much I'll try to.

Client Amurites very consistently cause desync whenever a 2nd spell is used by a spellstaff-wielding mage. Haven't tested with host Amurites.

Host player walking into a hellfire with a demon caused desync. This particular hellfire was barbarian owned and came from an even with the infernal tome. Desync happened a second time when I sent in a summoned Balor to try again. I didn't get far enough to test it, but I am worried about the AC 80 event making horrid desync issues as it would really mess up a 4p game I plan to do.

Sounds like multiplayer games might really dislike passive effects that trigger whenever you select a unit that meets certain criteria that would normally only be used to determine if a unit could cast a spell to cause effects. It is a shame since that is such a useful mechanism.

Using a mage with the twincast promotion, I got two copies of Abaddon. Probably this can be used for the other unleash spells too.

I guess I may need to change those spells to create the unit in python to avoid twincast issues. It is a shame that that probably means the AI would never understand what the spell does. Maybe I could instead keep it a python spell but make it convert the caster each Aspect of the Unraveling, signifying that the one unleashing such forces of destruction scarifies itself in the process or becomes possessed by such powerful evil spirits like Flauros was by Belphegor himself?

Hellfires at AC 80 with advanced tactics enabled are problematic for civilizations friendly to the Infernals, including Ashen Veil civilizations. The hellfires create control which blocks tile use and expansion with settlers, and the Infernal sects of flies cannot be removed, so the only way to fix one's land is to use Life 1 to remove the hellfires. This is problematic for the Sheaim, since removing hellfires in this way reduces AC by 2 and also denies use of them to the city. Without advanced tactics, the Ember Legion temple and the altar of demons building free specialist per hellfire can actually be used from the 80 AC event instead of having to destroy the hellfires. Maybe AV civilizations should get some kind of way to take control of existing hellfires that aren't within the borders of another civilization?

There is already a PythonOnMove effect that lets AV players take control of hellfire from non-AV, non infernal players. I guess that doesn't help unless at least one unit can already enter the tile though. I guess I could make it an PythonAtRange instead, but that still wouldn't help much when the hellfire's cultural borders include all adjacent tiles

Sheaim planar gate civpedia entry about what building spawns what is horribly out of date compared to what it actually does. It is a guessing game to figure out which buildings spawn things, sometimes you get hints in the civpedia, sometimes not like for the specter from the Arwan temple.

There are a vast array of balance specifics I would like to discuss with you. The current workaround I use of making an ever-lengthening banlist of things one's shouldn't do in a game eventually gets unwieldy. Handling this many details over a forum, while theoretically possible, is not particularly easy. Do you have Steam? This would be ideal for me and I can PM you on how to add me, but if that doesn't work for you I can talk it out here. I understand you are going through some hard times, and so this might not be the ideal moment, but eventually I would like to work things out when you can.

I don't use Steam. I think I might have had to get it when I got Civ V, but I got bored of it within a month since the 1 unit per tile limit was annoying and its mods were disappointing at the time so never went back.

EDIT 3/18: I managed to get friendly balors to spawn when I made a pact, but this is short-lived as the peace with barbarians is short-lived. Sometimes it only lasts a single tujrn. When the balors spawned, they reflagged the hellfire as barbarian even though I owned them, and I could even turn other hellfires I owned barbarian by using these. Infernal hellfires went barbarian if left alone when they spawned a balor, but unlike me (AV sheaim) the infernals could capture hellfires by walking over them whereas I had to wait for them to slowly rebel. I believe the code for advanced tactics has issues here.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm thinking that the Ringgiver High Priest spell will be called Equip, and grant an Equipped promotion that just allows free upgrades and upgrades outside of borders rather than the various other effects one might associate with the most advanced Peligard training.

I am thinking I will make Repair the Ringgiver Priest spell, since players can still get a limited number of priests without the state religion. I'll also make the Retrofit Golem feature a part of the Repair spell, when cast on Golems in a Luchuirp city containing Blasting Workshops, Pallens Engines, Adularia Chambers, etc.


After a little bit of playtesting, I am decided that the Empower Engine spell is too weak for a Ringgiver priest spell, as the only promotions that the caster is able to purchase which have summon perks are the Combat 1-5 spells that give the basic Empower 1-5 promotions. The priest would have to level up quite a bit for that to be on par with other priests.

If I use the identical code for a UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT unit, however, it becomes a great spell. A Mage or Archmage can get summon perks from the Spell Extension promotions and from various spell spheres or affinities. For example, a caster with affinities in the Enchantment, Earth, Shadow, and Water sphere, plus and Spell Extension 1-4 and Combat 1-5, could give a whole army of mechanized units (including Battering Rams, Catapults, Cannons, Trebuchets, Ships, Tanks, the War Machine, or any all Golems, including the Mithril Golem or Enchantment 4 Automatons) the Waterwalking, Mountaineer, Shadowwalk, and Mobility 1 & 2, Navigation 1&2, and Empowered 1-5 promotions. They would have 5 movement points, be able to move rapidly through all terrain, including peaks and oceans, could use enemy roads, ignore building defenses, etc. That is huge. It would be way too much for a Mage level spell, and top tier for an Archmage level spell. Of course, a regular mage could not get 4 affinities before the Tower of Mastery. I may have to playtest for a while to decide which channeling prereq is more balanced.

I am thinking about moving Craft Artifacts down to be a Mage level spell, but giving it a longer delayed casting (at least once the delayed casting miscasting bugs are fixed), allow the promotions for the equipment it creates to be Dispelled (Spellstaffs already can), and requiring a mana source on the caster's tile. The type of equipment it creates would be based on the sphere of that tile's mana type, instead of chosen randomly based on the caster's effective mana supply for various types of mana. That simplifies the code and may make things run slightly faster, but probably not enough to notice. This nerfs the spell in that it could not be used at all with no mana nodes of unique features providing the mana, but may also make it much less annoying as it gives the player more control over what kind of item they want to create. You could leave a mage stationed at a Megamatic node in order to produce Spellstaffs for your army rather than hoping to get Spellstaffs but ending up with something like Jade Torques or Golden Hammers most of the time.


I think that fits canonically, as Enchantment magic is supposed to be limited by itself yet able to work wonders when combined with the power of other spheres.


Edit: I an now leaning towards leaving Craft Artifact as the Enchantment 3 spell, making it so that i always creates an item associated with the sphere of whatever mana is on the caster's plot if there is mana on that plot, and allowing the Greater Version of the spell to otherwise produce random items while the lesser version cannot be cast except on a mana source.

I'm thinking Empower Engine is ok as a Mage spell as it does not start very strong even though it can scale to be extremely powerful on highly promoted and gifted archmages.

 

[crawlers]

There is a thing about the hellfires that I am unsure if it was communicated effectively. AV civs with advanced tactics enabled and who aren't at peace with barbarians (only lasts maybe a turn or some short time after making pact) will result in barbarian balors spawning on hellfires and taking control of them. This kind of annoyance makes me want to never use advanced tactics. When clicking on a unit standing on a hellfire, the hellfire immediately goes barbarian, but when walking over it, it can be captured if the owning civ is at peace with barbarians. Please change this situation so it doesn't require peace with barbarians or such annoying things like the hellfires flipping to them so often. Trying to click on the balor they spawn, even when controlled, makes the hellfire go barb again.

I see you don't use steam - that is said, so I will try to talk about the balance problems here. I want to clarify that this is not merely multiplayer balance, but game balance in general. I will start with some, there are simply way too many to manage them all at once in any sensible way. My banlist is so long nowadays that my players can't even remember half of it.

AV divine spells have immense potential for abuse, especially the divine 1 spell which is incomparably op. Ritualists can summon 2 imps per turn, and these start with master of magic, so the next turn 75% of them can upgrade into ritualists for 0 gold, keep their summon buffs, and summon more imps. With a pact, these self-replicating ritualists can a huge amount of strength and effortlessly crush everyone except the grigori. The divine 2 spell to create a hellfire allows using it as an infinite lair that is far faster than unique features, and with life 1, allows very easy and powerful reduction of AC (2 per turn per profane, so around 14 AC removed per turn, twice that if they have a spellstaff). Demonic possession on the high priest is a meme, allowing so many promotions to be acquired that the UI overflows and can't even display them - no need to even talk about how powerful this can make them.

The ring-giver temple grants 1 free specialist per workshop and windmill. This allows pretty easy acquisition of quite a lot of free specialists especially later on with how windmills are in most cases better than mines. Other temples can't compare to this power.

House of plenty temple mostly obsoletes the happiness mechanic, which makes sacrifice the weak civilizations a lot stronger. It's hard to imagine the potential of leaves svartalfar spamming farms and windmills with this; I imagine size 50-60 cities wouldn't be rare. It also greatly speeds up new cities too since they don't need to care about happiness buildings.

Dimensional 2 (planar binding) allows summons to last forever. The most obvious case is with the entropy affinity summon balor, who can gain dimensional affinity and thus sustain itself along with all its balor pals, allowing an ever-growing horde of them.

The pact with salos outcompetes all summoning spells. The resulting succubus has a good deal of power - its not hard to get around 17 str after buffs and promotions it gets, and if it is summoned in a city, it gains weapon upgrades too.

I am unsure exactly what is going on, but succubus and chaos marauder that come out of planar gates (or are summoned in a city that has one maybe?) have a stupid amount of free extra promotions, around 7 or so. This is ontop of the experience they get from AC. I can't tell if this is intended or not, maybe to make the chaos marauder relevant, but it seems very powerful.

Colubras can be turned into pyre zombies . . . this allows ignoring their limit from the planar gate and all of their extra poison str is converted into normal str and then adding +2 fire to it. This makes something comparable to if not stronger than a rifleman.

I will wait for your response before posting the next batch - this is maybe a quarter or a third of it.