Master of Mana Xtended 5.0

[esvath]

the ai cant use magic properly

IIRC, AI know how to use magic/cast spells. It's just they put GE and summons above direct damage spells. This was Sephi's decision.

Personally, I don't have the ability to mod AI so I have to discuss this with CarnivalBizarre first.

i would like to suggest to reduce the amount of spell targets form sorcery promotion to 50% from 100% and maybe increase the spellresistance from wizard promotion form 10 to 20. The extra spelldamage from warlock promotion could also be decreased from 30 to 20 (or maybe 25?).

This is doable. I might also increase base magic resistance from adepts' combat aura. Reflecting magic attack back is not doable through python and xml, though.

This guild [Slavers' Quarter] just misses something powerful at the end of the tree.

Slavers' Quarter is already too strong in early game. Not only Balseraphs or Aristarkh, any evil civ or even neutral ones benefit greatly from it. I am hesitant to give more power to it.

Increasing the cost of buying slaves in early game is doable and maybe a good way to nerf early game slavery and to make later techs more powerful.

On this note, i find it weird, that there are only 4 lists of civics you can choose from.

I'll take a look at Civic at future version.

 

[Ombatur]

Slavers' Quarter is already too strong in early game. Not only Balseraphs or Aristarkh, any evil civ or even neutral ones benefit greatly from it. I am hesitant to give more power to it.

Increasing the cost of buying slaves in early game is doable and maybe a good way to nerf early game slavery and to make later techs more powerful.

Thats ok. I trust your opinion more than my own here.

I'll take a look at Civic at future version.

Cool.

 

[Jojo_Fr]

I might take the second suggestion or maybe increase early-game science input from buildings if other players are sharing this opinion.

• On which turn were you? Tier 1 spells are no longer capable of killing enemy units. Their damage is capped at (at most) 50%.
• Around turn 60 I guess. Tiers 1 are not able to kill but hurt unit loosed some strenght and can be killed by weaker units. I guess he used some Air Spells like thunderstorm, but I don't remember well. I don't remember what units he used to kill my units but I suppose it was Swordmages. I had crossbowman, breakers (the khazad special units) and brawlers. I got militarisation, few crossbowman with defense specialisations (as Eternal Guard). I made zero death, he killed me with zero lost. He only used mana we could say...
• He came to my land. I reproduced armies when he came. I tried to attack him but he got time to use spells again. So, even in defense, I was not able to damage his stack. Finally, I surrendered, but asked him to let me try attack his stack with more units, and if he stop using spells. He accepted. I killed his stack entirely, with few lost. Magic is super powerfull in defense, but less powerfull in offense, as you cannot use it on a fast army wich direct attack you (I don't really like this phenomen but it's like that).
• Tier 1 spells can only target 1-3 enemies, with Fireball has the highest number of target.
• If your opponent was using Tier 2 or Tier 3, he had to use Mage or Archmage, which means he invested significant proportion of his research and arcane research to gain that kind of power. I see nothing wrong with that. If he spent such resources but get lousy spells, that would be unfair for him.
• I don't think he had mages. But even if he had mages, it would mean that with nearly the double of his score point, double of his cities, and correct research, Military State activated (to have the more units support as possible), it's not possible to invade a magical civ, so I could just wait him coming, and try an economic victory or something like that...
• Spells cost mana and each civ can only hoard a certain amount of mana. That in itself is a limitation.

There are various ways to reduce spell damages:

• Khazad and Luchuirp can use Dwarven Coppercraft (unlocked at Weaponry) which gives the wearer +50% magic resistance.
  
• Thank you for the information. This magic resistance is high, it looks interesting. Sadly, only few of my units had the level to have access to equipement. I had weaponry but I did not saw this equipement, but it would certainly have helped me a lot, +50 % it's big I guess. The problem here, again, that the required level that you choosed, is a bad thing. It means that you need to XP your units on barbarians before a war (which is not viable because you can have already cleaned the barbarians). Or you have decided to preserve a barbarian lair just to farm XP on it (I hate this idea, it's pure abuse of the barbarian system I think. I think some players XP on barbarians and exploit the Bard class on it. It's a big exploit, but that is another question.
• Or it needs you let your whole army stay on your military district city to grow on XP. It takes some times, and it's not viable because in multiplayer you need to let your army at front, where the ennemy can come. If you don't, you will loose your city. I think it would be really better if you could just give immediately the maximum XP when units are produced in a city. It would be really easier to have access to equipement, and not have to sleep your units in the city. I don't understand what your system of passive XP growing inside a military city (up to a certain limit) bring to the game and the fun, compared to a simple direct max XP when unit is produced.
• Arcane units start with combat aura which gives magic resistance to allies. Strengthen this using level up promotions.
• Combat IV and Combat V promotion give +5% magic resistance each.
• If you take Defense or Divine discipline, you can get Elemental Resistance I. Divine discipline unlocks Elemental Resistance II.
• Religions:
  • Runes of Kilmorph priest can take Rune of Warding, which will give allies +25% magic resistance.
  • Empyrean priest can take Armor of Dawn, which will reduce fire and unholy damage.
  • Ashen Veil priest starts with combat aura which increase magic resistance on allies.
  • Order has Shining Armor, which grants magic resistance.
  • Ok thank you for these informations, I have a clearer vision of what can be done against magic. But game test have to be done in multiplayer to have a real practice of this.

As I have said, Xtended's aim is asymmetrical balance. If your opponent goes magic heavy, there are ways to counter them. If your opponent has greater raw strength, you can use magic to weaken them.
The true question is : do you have played games in multiplayer on competitive level ? If you have played against A.I, what you say is purely theoric. Only count real test with competitive humans (competitive I mean someone who know what to do, know all the mechanics to win).



Preventing lower level units to use equipment is thematic. They are newbies, rookies, starters. The available resources should be used for more experienced units.

However:

• Play Bannor. Their units start with basic armor/weapon.
• Use enchantments/buildings to give free xp to your units.
• I would like to know : if you produce one unit to a military district, and if the military dictrict give max 20 XP passively, is it enough to have access to equipement ? And more important : how many turns it will needs to obtain this 20 XP ? 10 turns ? Know that we play only on fast game speed, because it's a total need in multiplayer.
• Sacrifice two units so the third one can kill enemy and gain xp. Promote this third unit to Offense -> Warlord, so he gains Second Chance and use him to bait other enemy, allowing the fourth rookie to kill the enemy and gain xp. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Jojo_Fr]

One of the benefit of Slavers Quarter is exactly as you have said:



Because the benefit of gold rush (through buying slaves) is enermous, Slavers Quarter needs a big malus: civ-wide unhappiness.



This is symmetrical balance: everyone can do everything, which is not Xtended's design philosophy.



On their own, Profits, Benevolence and Harvesting might seem weak. But put in proper context, they have their own benefits.

• Profits: +3 gold per city culture level. So if you have city with culture level 2 (100 culture), you will get +6 gold. Your starting city will always start with culture level 2, thus making you get +6 gold for -20% hammer. If you are Khazad, you will prefer gold over hammer, anyway, because you will have increased hammer from Dwarven Vault.
• I am not sure your calcul is good. I am pretty sure it's far better to have faster production than to win this very small +6 gold per turn. As khazad you have some mines, so some production (and Arturus Throne as the worker trait which give +1 industry when you got already 3 hammers). -20 % industry for +6 dust (in the capital) it's not enough. I think definively Profits has a too small effect, and should be buffed or changed in a more determined direction.
• Liberty without malus will be OP. Unlimited number of specialists? Sidar will cry in joy and, despite lore, will always adopt Empyrean to get the civic. Increased maintenance is because the citizens starting to demand various facilities from the government. There is no war weariness in Xtended, so that idea is not going to work.
• Maybe I lack of experience, but I was disapointed by Liberty each time I took it. I think it's because the benefit of great persons is not great. I am globally dissapointed by the Great Persons in MoM as it's super slow to pop one great person. In my experience is far too slow, even if I have a very specialised city. I don't understand why you took this choice.
• Benevolence is great for tall empire, like Kuriotates. Again, +1 health per city culture level. In Kuriotates' metropolises, that will be +4 to +8 health. Not to mention, when plague strike, you will be thankful for the health generated.
• Ok I see.

Harvesting hmm might be better to increase the benefits to +3 leather/lumber/food? Anyone else has opinion on this?
My opinion on this is yes you should do this. And more than this, the ressources you gain by improvements is TOO weak. Maybe it's because I play on quick speed game, I don't know. Does it increase the ressources per turn or not ? If not I understand well why I am frustrated to never have enough ressources. I think it would good to add +2 ressources to any buildings. I especially got great difficulties to have enough Stone in all my games, as there is so much usefull buildings which require Stone.

Merchant Houses' rushing gold for unit: thematically, it's like the Merchants are offering extra money so the soldiers are getting ready faster.

 

[esvath]

@Jojo_Fr

Ah, yes, now I understand why we have very different gaming experience. I test Xtended on Single Player, Normal speed, Monarch difficulty.

First: game speed. I am not sure that playing Quick will increase yields (leather, lumber, metal...) since Quick does not increase food, hammer and commerce, right? In fact, I am not sure MoM's mechanics are modified by game speed at all.

Second: multiplayer vs single player. I always play single player and I understand that something perceived as "balanced" in single player can be considered very much unbalanced in multi player. However, things perceived as "balanced" in multi player can be considered as bland or too symmetric in single player. I see this debate on Age of Wonders III forum (which you might also play?).

Considering these two conditions, I'd have to say that Xtended will be very much unbalanced for your type of game. I can adopt some of your and other players' suggestion, for the example of strengthening Harvesting. But to be honest, I am not sure whether these changes will cater to your needs. With all that in mind, I value your opinion and will try to find ways to make Xtended interesting for both single player and multiplayer gaming.

On XP: you need 30 xp to get level 3 and use gears.

Tips: if you are playing Khazad, beeline Ancient Chants and get ROK. You can use Stonewardens to give magic resistance to your units and to smite your enemies using Spiritual Hammer spell.

 

[Ombatur]

I think it was something like turn 490. Iiirc not all of the 500 units were ogres but something like 90% of the 500 units definitely were.

Edit:
I found the save, in case it helps. It turns out it was turn 478 and i was exaggerating. There were "only" 420 ogres.

Just found a new highscore for ogre population.^^ 618 ogres in a barbarian city on turn 397. I attached a savefile, in case it helps.

 

[Ogi123]

That's something introduced by CarnivalBizzare changes I think. Because in 4.1 this situation doesn't take place.

Other thing I have spotted when playing Dural is that they currently lack starting tech. Some more unit variety would also be nice, horseman at horseback riding S9, -25% city attack, 200-300 leather and Chevalier, same as Grigori UU and archer same as laun/grigori ?

 

[Jojo_Fr]

@Jojo_Fr

Ah, yes, now I understand why we have very different gaming experience. I test Xtended on Single Player, Normal speed, Monarch difficulty.

First: game speed. I am not sure that playing Quick will increase yields (leather, lumber, metal...) since Quick does not increase food, hammer and commerce, right? In fact, I am not sure MoM's mechanics are modified by game speed at all.
Quick does not increase output of food, hammer etc. but quick decrase the cost of everything : tech cost less to research, buildings units & wonders cost less to produce, city need less food to growth. About food and growth, it's bad for slaver civ to play in quick speed, as you cannot have more than one population point growth per turn, so your super growth often is not very efficient in quick speed than it should (could you autorise growth than more one population point per turn ?) In the end, the difference it's more things in happened in one turn except the speed of units : units have more time to heal in normal speed, more time to move on the map, so units are more precious. It means, for exemple, that it's twice more easy to level up a unit against barbarian in normal speed than in quick speed, as you can attack "twice" more if you see what I mean (which is a good thing as it's too easy to exploit barbarians).

The problem it's : in quick speed, the HAMMER cost decrease in quick speed, but the ressource cost don't. So you have really not enough ressources. That is why the player Tasunke decided to mod your mod to increase the ressources (at least +3 per improvements) the player earn in the improvements. It compensate this problem in the quick speed, but a better solution would be great (can you increase the ressources output in Quick Speed ?).

Second: multiplayer vs single player. I always play single player and I understand that something perceived as "balanced" in single player can be considered very much unbalanced in multi player. However, things perceived as "balanced" in multi player can be considered as bland or too symmetric in single player. I see this debate on Age of Wonders III forum (which you might also play?).

Considering these two conditions, I'd have to say that Xtended will be very much unbalanced for your type of game. I can adopt some of your and other players' suggestion, for the example of strengthening Harvesting. But to be honest, I am not sure whether these changes will cater to your needs. With all that in mind, I value your opinion and will try to find ways to make Xtended interesting for both single player and multiplayer gaming.
I understand. But I don't think my critics I mainly about multiplayer balancing. I think it's more about balancing. If I play solo, and I play solo, I assure you that there is huge score difference and growth difference between civs. And I don't speak of the most originals civs. Scions are super weak for exemple, but it would require some work for you to balance them I suppose, so I understand they are weak. Aristarkh are weaks. Sheaims are weak. But if you think it's normal because it's a calculed unbalance, I don't see what I can say more.

I understand your arguments about the asymetric balance. But if you play only normal and in monarch difficulty, you cannot really judge the things. I play only on Immortal and Deity, because if not A.I is not at all a challenge for exemple, even in Deity (the only problem with Deity it's the A.I has too much mana and if he has hostile rituals he can devastate your land and it's unpossible to repair it unless you are advanced magic).

On XP: you need 30 xp to get level 3 and use gears.

Ok thank you. But it takes toom much turns to level up by passive XP. I would prefer a immediately XP growth as the unit has been produced. Maybe I ll change it myself in the file if you don't want to do it. ^^

Tips: if you are playing Khazad, beeline Ancient Chants and get ROK. You can use Stonewardens to give magic resistance to your units and to smite your enemies using Spiritual Hammer spell.

 

[Calavente]

Re "quick" : speed doesn't change input but change costs.
However, I'm not sure that MoM costs are reduced (yield / mana cost / faith cost) (maybe even guild culture cost and spell research cost).
So quick could be really inbalanced as all units/buildings/improvements are too expensive in yield, and spells too expensive.

re training:
training is bonked.
you get many training buildings... but they don't complement between themselves and training rate is too uncertain.

ex: training yard gives training until 15xp,
barrack gives training until 20xp :

when you have training yard +barrack ... it seems the same training rate as having only barrack (very low xp gain), and same training limit as barracks.

IMO training buildings should give a promotion: "+Y xp/turn until +Z xp", removed once you leave the city.
and either having multiple training building change "Z" cap or the +total Y xp/turn.

like having training yard : +1 xp/turn until 15
Barracks : +1xp/turn until +20:

you get: +2xp/turn until 15 then +1/turn until 20xp.
OR : you could get : +1xp/turn until 35xp . (or +2 until 35)

(however, even +2xp/turn is really slow as training goes... especially as later units can be directly built with 50 xp !! ... for a unit built in 1 turn) (altar of battle + fire-spell + warrior district + one or two other buildings and civics)
(this means that even without trying you can easily get units at 20-25xp... so most of your training facilities have no real use)

IMO training should be able to compensate this

the best way would be to have (for me)
training building : +3/4 xp/turn (whatever the training building /even when multiple buildings are there)
(please remember that in MoM, you need 30+ xp in order to get level 4... and to be able to get your 1st choice in promotion / in vanilla FFH: you can get +40%str at 5xp !... here, to get combat 3 (2promotions), you need to have 20xp... and to get 40%str, you need... 30xp + a specilisation in Offence discipline. or 40-50xp otherwise)

plus, please consider that farming barbs gives you 5-8 xp per combat until you have 30xp... (I've exploited that a lot in my last game), even when you have a unit that is much stronger than the barb.

training buildings increase the cap of xp trainable :
+10-15 per building :
barracks + training yard + warrior district + tower of archery + archery range: archery units can train until 50-60xp ! (or something like that)

 

[Jojo_Fr]

I agree with you. So that confirm that Quick speed is unbalanced (not enough ressources earnard because the ressources are not reduced by the game speed...). Would be good to do something, if possible.

I did not know what you said about training which don't complement themself.

More than that, I think training should just be removed by immediate ready unit, for the reasons I explained (we have better things to do with units than waiting some turns in a city not at the front, to do nothing). It's enough difficulty to set up a strong military center, having enough produciton, buildings, ressources, and build the units...).

 

[Ogi123]

Other suggestion: currently both diseased corpses and pyre zombies can gain experience, that is rather strange considering they are undead. Perhaps make them unable to gain exp or use equipment?

 

[Calavente]

More than that, I think training should just be removed by immediate ready unit, for the reasons I explained (we have better things to do with units than waiting some turns in a city not at the front, to do nothing). It's enough difficulty to set up a strong military center, having enough produciton, buildings, ressources, and build the units...).

Training is by itself an interesting concept :
what do you do with the old units once you are able to produce 40xp units "right-out-of-production" : training allows you to retrofit your old units into better units. So IMO it is useful. But IMO with the current way it is done the player doesn't really see the effect... AND the xp gain is too small... AND the buildings don't complement with each other. (later buildings having a lower xp training cap than earlier ones / maximum xp cap being very low when compared to possible "free xp at birth" ...etc )

 

[Jojo_Fr]

In my view, there should be an action to do by units to retrain up to the maximal level what the city can offer via all the military training building. So you just would bring these ancient noob units, and train them with this button.

After you can move the unit where you want to defend your empire or attack somewhere...

 

[esvath]

I think training should just be removed by immediate ready unit

Yeah, I tend to agree with you on this. I am considering to cut "passive training" except for Sidar. Training Yard, Barrack etc will give free xp to units built in the city instead.

Other suggestion: currently both diseased corpses and pyre zombies can gain experience, that is rather strange considering they are undead. Perhaps make them unable to gain exp or use equipment?

Lore wise, yeah, it is strange for Drown, Diseased Corpse or Pyre Zombie to gain xp. But disallowing them gaining xp might weaken OO and AV tremendously.

For now, let's just keep them the way they are. All undead summons in Death magic also capable of gaining xp and using weapon

 

[Linvega]

hello,
I'm new to this modmodmod... whatever, and first I really want to say how great your work is. I haven't played Civ IV in ages and since I had some free time I wanted to buy myself Civ V, and one thing lead to another... and I ended up here instead. Can't say I'm unhappy about that though.

In any case, I had some issues during my plays today:
1. AI didn't build settlers in my first game. Though I think that was because I played xtended 3.0 at first, I just wanted to note this in case this bug hasn't been adressed so far.
2. Even worse now in 5.0, I played with 5 AI's and at turn 50, three of them for some reason didn't even build their first(!) city so far. I have no idea what happened, maybe raging wilderness? The other 2 seemed to do fine though.
3. I played with flexible difficulty and somehow I ended up 3 difficulties higher than the baseline. Did I misunderstand something about it? I thought it's supposed to be one up if you're good, one down if you're bad. I took flexible because I wasn't sure how hard this mod is, it worked out fine at first but suddenly I'm getting swarmed by barbarians on emperor.

And a few remarks:
1.More options:
Please add more options. Just a few changes can imo make the game feel entirely different, like no settlers + barbarian world + extra civs in the orbis mod.
2. more map variants:
Just like options, different map styles with more adjustment possibilities like full of ressources can change so much, and it's (or appears to be) relatively simple compared to new civs with new mechanics.

And lastly, a question: If I wanted to change any of this by myself, where would I need to look it up to learn how to do it?

 

[esvath]

Hi, thanks for playing!

In any case, I had some issues during my plays today:
1. AI didn't build settlers in my first game. Though I think that was because I played xtended 3.0 at first, I just wanted to note this in case this bug hasn't been adressed so far.
2. Even worse now in 5.0, I played with 5 AI's and at turn 50, three of them for some reason didn't even build their first(!) city so far. I have no idea what happened, maybe raging wilderness? The other 2 seemed to do fine though.
3. I played with flexible difficulty and somehow I ended up 3 difficulties higher than the baseline. Did I misunderstand something about it? I thought it's supposed to be one up if you're good, one down if you're bad. I took flexible because I wasn't sure how hard this mod is, it worked out fine at first but suddenly I'm getting swarmed by barbarians on emperor.

And a few remarks:
1.More options:
Please add more options. Just a few changes can imo make the game feel entirely different, like no settlers + barbarian world + extra civs in the orbis mod.
2. more map variants:
Just like options, different map styles with more adjustment possibilities like full of ressources can change so much, and it's (or appears to be) relatively simple compared to new civs with new mechanics.

And lastly, a question: If I wanted to change any of this by myself, where would I need to look it up to learn how to do it?

- bug about AI not settling is an old bug and we thought we had it squashed but apparently not Basically, whenever AI settler spawn in a tile which it can not build city upon, like spawning on Lost Temple or hill plains, then that AI civ will freeze. Let me try some workout on this.

- IIRC, flexible difficulty will continue to raise your difficulty if you are doing well. So you could end up three difficulties above your starting one.

- adding option requires DLL work and I can't do DLL modding. So it has to wait for CarnivalBizarre. Or maybe other member here can mod DLL and want to contribute?

- It depends on what you want to do: you can mod xml files, python files or DLL files. Maybe you can look at general CIV4 modding forum for starter?

 

[Psychodad]

My 2 cent for the discussed topics:

quick speed: i switched to normal speed some time ago because i always ran out of yield. Reducing the costs on quick speed would be great.

harvesting civic: don't make ist better! Its my most used civic in that branch. +2 Food on Farms is just great and the alternative civics arn't that good either.

equipment: i dont see the point in not letting rookies equip. I agree with jojo_fr here.

XP: ATM (on Immortal/Deity) its a must to abuse Barbarians to level up your troops. I am most successfull (nearly always winning) if i have Skeletons near my starting location, making my army so strong i can crush any AI opponent. I dont like that. XP gained by fighting barbs should be limited. Passive Trainig could be an alternative to milking barbs for XP if it would work right. Cut training for fixed XP could be ok to. Not sure about that.

Magic: Combat Magic (although it got nerfed) still feels a little strong. Reducing Spelltargets/power from the disciple promotion would be fine. Theese fireball throwing adapts will still be devastating to enemie stacks. Maybe even reduse Max-Damage from lvl1 Spells to 40%. I don't really like the percentual damage of spells making them much more effektive vs. high strength units. Maybe give each unit Spellresitance = (2*Str)% making high strengh units less vulnurable for spell damage.

Great Persons: I like them how they are. They are really powerful and i use them every game for good advantage. Produktion rate dont't need to be boosted.

 

[esvath]

Further nerfing of combat magic is possible but I am afraid that nerf will come to "what is the use of casting damage spells? The damage is negligible."

AI does not cast damage spells that much (but they do) because they put more value on GE and summons. So, rather than nerfing combat magic, maybe I can increase the importance of GE and summons for human players instead? This will directly helps the AI too.

Now the main questions are :

- Which part of GE should I improve?
--- Increasing their effects?
--- Reducing the cost?
--- ???

- Which part of summon should I improve?
--- Increasing their strength?
--- Reducing the cost?
--- Making summons do not require unit supply?
--- ???

 

[gbursson]

Now the main questions are :

- Which part of GE should I improve?
--- Increasing their effects?
--- Reducing the cost?
--- ???

I feel those are actually too cheap. Even if not focusing on mana generation I feel I can GE as much as I like.

- Which part of summon should I improve?
--- Increasing their strength?
--- Reducing the cost?
--- Making summons do not require unit supply?
--- ???

THAT -> --- Making summons do not require unit supply?
Those should be free of support, they cost mana upkeep already.

 

[Ombatur]

Now the main questions are :

- Which part of GE should I improve?
--- Increasing their effects?
--- Reducing the cost?
--- ???

I dont feel like I need more of an incentive to use GE. Focussing a bit on magic usually gives me enough mana to afford all the GE I want. And since most of them are quite useful, I often have a nice list of active GE at the end of the game.

- Which part of summon should I improve?
--- Increasing their strength?
--- Reducing the cost?
--- Making summons do not require unit supply?
--- ???

The powerlevel of summons feels good to me. They can get quite powerful through mana affinities, when you manage to get a lot of mana nodes. When they dont cost supply anymore, the mana upkeep should be increased by maybe 20-30% to balance that out in my opinion.


I would suggest to first implement the changes to magic you have in mind, esvath, and than, after some time reevaluate, whether casting spells is still too powerful.