Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod 2.0

[Drift]

Originally posted by mrtn
How do you mean can't? They can in the Mesoamerican conquest. Just make the irrigation bonus 1 instead of 0.

They can? But there aren't any graphics to go with it?

Besides, it would have to be something available only to nature mages. I don't want universal irrigating of hills.

 

[mrtn]

In that conquest you can irrigate hills, mountains and jungles. I think it uses the ordinary irrigation gfx (i e the one not named desert, plain or tundra...). It may look strange some times, but it's certainly possible.
If you add it you have to make it universal, though...

 

[Drift]

Thanks for clearing that up. I have no plans of adding it though.

 

[Klyden]

Perhaps a nature only city improvement to add a percentage to their production in the early going. Everyone else will get the ability to irrigate without fresh water later in the tech tree anyway.

The advantage for the nature mages is up front, but I think they start loosing ground in the mid game and get toasted in the end game, especially depending on what the map comes up like.

 

[Drift]

Originally posted by Klyden
Perhaps a nature only city improvement to add a percentage to their production in the early going. Everyone else will get the ability to irrigate without fresh water later in the tech tree anyway.

The advantage for the nature mages is up front, but I think they start loosing ground in the mid game and get toasted in the end game, especially depending on what the map comes up like.

Hmm. A production building for nature mages is naturally one of the options. Or then I just give them those mines. The late game fall of nature mages in the couple of games I've played might suggest that the AI could use it.

Gotta think on this. Again, you provide good feedback. Thanks!

 

[grumbler]

Another minor bug: The enslave result for the ghost ship is not set in the editor ...

 

[Drift]

Originally posted by grumbler
Another minor bug: The enslave result for the ghost ship is not set in the editor ...

Thank you again.

 

[Drift]

Next patch is swelling in size. We are now looking at ~30 megs.

I'm really excited about the new turns the mod is taking. Nothing radical, but I can feel how the pieces are falling in their place. I've redesigned many things: navy is almost brand new with curraghs as the only unit that isn't by aaglo, each side gets new units and existing units and improvements have been tweaked. Amount of new units in total is somewhere around 25.

If Kinboat finishes his Angel before I'm ready, this may well become MoM 1.0.

 

[Klyden]

Just finished an interesting game.

I was Oberic and finally found a combo that I felt suited my play style as I have tried the others and not had a lot of luck with them. The game ended on turn 383 on victory points.

I think I was fortunate in the map layout (lots of medium sized islands) and I was able to contain my neighbor very early on the island we both started on and later crushed him. The other mages were 3 chaos, 3 death, and 1 nature. The way the map was laid out, not everyone could trade goods with each other, which hurt a bit.

I got off to a good science start and kept a good lead for most of the game and this is probably due to one of Oberics advantages.

I had been lining up to try to make some more dents in the death mages when the nature mage decided to demand a very advance tech and since he and I were the leaders, I declined and he declared war on me. After moving my army over, I manage to take over 5 cities on one of his islands and basically just ran over the top of him. Nature mages are a bit wimpy at the moment and I had a lot tougher going against the death mages. The nature mage cities had maybe 4-6 units per city and the toughest unit they had was the Treant, which did not hold well against my riders and chaos spawns.

Drift, I have some saved games if you want to PM me a e-mail address and you can look them over.

I did not establish embassies until after the game was over but I think seeing what each of the capitals have will provide you with some interesting information along with an idea of how the game went. The top two death mages have an absolute ton of units in their capitals. The nature mage capital production is 6 shields at this point.. way, way too low. The Chaos mages are somewhere in the middle, but had poor starting positions.

Another tweak for the nature mages might be to allow them to draft. With their population growth, this will help them on the military side and would make a certain amount of sense if you give them a unit of nature (like the treants at a later stage or some type of plant unit earlier). The Death mages are very strong with their extra production abilites and ability to draft.

 

[Drift]

Excellent feedback!

I'd love to see some savegames. My email is driftwood@sunpoint.net

This feedback about the nature mages is the final nail in the coffin of "no mines for nature mages". I'll give them back to them. I'll also consider the drafting for nature mages. With correct units it should be ok.

Do you feel death mages are too strong? I originally added the production bonus because I felt they weren't strong enough. Should it be removed?

Is Chaos or Life too weak/strong? Anything else bugging you?


Thank you so much for the feedback.

 

[Klyden]

On the death mages, I never saw them do anything on a naval front, so I don't know if they just felt they would do nothing but build units or what. I did take an island that was a death mage island, so at least they settled it, but did nothing else on a naval stand point. This might need a minor tweak as well. Perhaps giving them some of the later game transports that Chaos and Nature get, but not the warship would help.

Chaos is close. They have a good blend of units and some useful advances on their tree. They also have a strong advantage with the industrial part of it.

For life, this is the only game I have tried with them, so I am not as sure. They have a good blend and have minor issues early with little or no offensive units (had a time with the barbarians for a bit). Later on, their units are awesome both on the defence and offense.

 

[Drift]

Originally posted by Klyden
On the death mages, I never saw them do anything on a naval front, so I don't know if they just felt they would do nothing but build units or what. I did take an island that was a death mage island, so at least they settled it, but did nothing else on a naval stand point. This might need a minor tweak as well. Perhaps giving them some of the later game transports that Chaos and Nature get, but not the warship would help.

They are actually getting the best transport of all mages - 2.4.4 with transport capacity of 8. It's rather high in the tech tree though - death magic IX. If they aren't building Ghost Ships / not using them as transports they may need a lower level transport after all. Although, they do have the Cog which isn't exactly a worthless transport.

AI and naval units is always bit of a mystery.

[/b]For life, this is the only game I have tried with them, so I am not as sure. They have a good blend and have minor issues early with little or no offensive units (had a time with the barbarians for a bit). Later on, their units are awesome both on the defence and offense. [/B]

The late-game payoff is actually what I was looking for with them. Their classification in terms of units is mainly defensive and mobile with relatively best units stored at the top of the tech tree.

 

[Klyden]

Out of curiosity, I went through most of the units and I found some interesting things. I know Drift has been working on a new version with different/tweaked units, but will still offer my observations.

First, I figured out why the life mages are so tough. They basically have two lines of troops: foot and mounted. The foot have a tendency to be defensive in nature and offer good defense at a reasonable price. The mounted units offer good offensive qualities while still having a reasonable defense. Only 1 foot unit requires a life node and all the mounted units except the lowest one require life nodes. The real killer for life mages is that each class of troop can be upgraded to the next level. Put together with the cheap upgrade wonder and it can be down right deadly.

Death mage units have mostly cheap foot units with the shadowman being the best buy for a long time. The regular skeleton unit that starts the game does not require a DN, but a skeleton spear unit does. There are no real upgrade potentials for death mages. They do benefit from not having that many critical units requiring a node and also that several of their units are maintence free. Given their lower cost and the high production values of the death mage position, it is easy to see why they get a horde of these.

Chaos units have the smallest force pool available. They start with the excellent fanatic and the beast is not bad either for an early game unit. If they have access to a chaos node, then it is not too bad as the devil unit is a good defender, although at 30 shields AND requiring a chaos node, this is not in line with other units like it (life protector is 25, no node and death skeleton spear unit is 20 with a node requirement). The later Chaos units offer little defense, but have big attacks (which is fitting) but a Chaos position could be crippled in that all require a chaos node. The best unit availble without a node is the chaos warrior.

Nature starts out with a moble, but expensive defender that struggles with barbarians. Given they don't do mines early, it means that nature mages are going to be behind on the army front early. Ents seem to be a stable of the nature mage and don't require nodes and also have an extra hp. Much of the rest of the nature units are expensive and require nature nodes. Nature mages can't upgrade units for the most part and are stuck with what they build. They do get some very good big units late game, but those units all come with a very hefty price and the requirement of nature nodes.

For the 8 racial units, most can be upgraded to the next level.

Dark elf units are cheap, offensive and nasty. They might be a bit too offensive for what they are as there are some races that could be considered more offensive in general (Orcs and and maybe humans). A more balanced unit is probably in order.

Orcs are generally foot units and struggle against their opponents on the same level of the tech tree. The plus 1 hp helps make up for that, but I think they should be a tad more offensive. Orcs generally don't have the discipline to do well on defence, but most of their units have an ok defensive number.

Dwarven units are generally the premere defensive unit in the game, especially for non-life mages who generally don't have anything better than a 3 pointer for defence.

Elven units are nasty and have the blitz ability, but also have a hefty price tag on the low end. Perhaps an ability to give them as well is to ignore forest movement penalties, enhancing their mobility in their natural element.

Troll units are not that impressive on the low end and are expensive. Their extra hps help make up for that and are useful units.

Human units are weak for what they are and the amphibious ability is not that useful as by the time they get 3 point attackers, everyone has at least 3 point defenders if not better. I would say they need to be a bit more offensive if they are to keep their amphibious status and make them more of a bezerker/nomadic type units. Right now, they would be very hard pressed to take a city in an amphibious assault against most opponents.

Goblin units are pretty weak, but are cheap to mass produce. Probably good as is.

Lizard units are generally defensive and slow in nature, but offer good bang for the buck.

Overall observations:

Life: May want to bump the Acolyte to 15 or make some other starting units a bit cheaper for the other races. Other than that, nasty.

Chaos: Would include some upgrade potental in there someplace. Perhaps do a Fanatic-Warrior and also Beast - Etten. Chaos summons gets you the knight and warrior, which does not make a lot of sense. Perhaps exchange the warrior for the devil?

Death: Would come up with two lines of troops for upgrades. Skeletons should upgrade to skeleton spearmen. Do a "living" line and a "undead" line. Shadowmen could upgrade to cold ones, Zombies to Ghosts. I would also include a bit of a price increase on some of the death units. Some of especially the lower units are very cheap and between that, no maintenence on some units and the production advantage death mages get, it produces a huge hoard of units.

Nature: The Cent needs to be cheaper. I would say 15 perhaps. It also needs an available upgrade to something better down the road. Nature lends itself to a couple of upgrade lines. Birds, trees/plants, etc. I don't know that the giant unit is in "flavor" for them. They are also too dependent on having to have a nature node available and also their units are very expensive. As discussed on another post, I think getting a draft unit for them based on a plant or something would help.

 

[Drift]

Whoa! I'll need to digest this a bit before commenting. All I can say right now is that you are producing amazing commentary - well organized and with solid reasoning. This is exactly what I've been hoping to get, but apart from a few exceptions, haven't really gotten so far.

I'll be back.

 

[Drift]

First, the fact that almost all high end units of the mages require a node is intentional. It's meant to emphasize the importance of resource wars. Do you think I should make one or two additional units from each mage free of node requirements? I added a few already for this version.

I've read your feedback on the units and inspired by it, redesigned some of the units. Great stuff! I don't fully agree on the upgrade chains though. My approach is that the unit's upgrade chain should be based on its function. It results in silly upgrades where two completely different units upgrade, but I can live with it if it makes the game play better and the AI have better chances of survival. Here's the current unit system: Units in italics are free of node requirements.

Chaos

• Gap from Chaos Warrior to Chaos Ettin is pretty wide, but I'm not sure whether it's a problem. Chaos Ettin appears more early than its equivalents from other mages. Archdemons are so expensive because they can rebase from anywhere to any friendly city. Wyvern Riders and Archdemons ignore movement penalties on mountains, hills and swamps.
  
  Footmen
  Fanatic(2.1.1 - 15) -> Beastman(2.2.1 - 20) -> Chaos Warrior(4.2.1 - 30) -> Chaos Ettin(7.3.1 - 80) -> Mauler(8.4.1 - 100)
  
  Defenders
  Devil(1.3.1 - 25) -> Beholder(1.4.1 - 40) -> Guardian(2.5.1 - 60)
  
  Cavalry
  Chaos Knight(5.2.2 - 60) -> Wyvern Rider(6.3.3 - 100)
  
  Others:
  Helldrake(7.2.2atar - 200), Archdemon(10.5.2 - 200)

Death

• Death mages have a horde of enslaving units. Necromancers, Ghosts and Wraiths create 3.2.1 Crypt Skeletons, Vampires create new vampires and Shadow Demons create Wraiths. All others create Zombie Workers. I like these concepts but I'm not sure whether they are too powerful. Especially the Vampires and Shadows Demons puzzle me. Horde of them would recover its losses and be practically unstoppable. The whole footmen line is also draftable - too powerful? Nightmare riders ignore movement penalties on mountains, hills and swamps.
  
  Footmen
  Skeleton Warrior(1.1.1 - 5) -> Zombie(2.2.1 - 15) -> Shadowman(3.3.1 30) -> Cursed Legionary(5.3.1 - 50) -> Vampire(6.4.1 - 80)
  
  Defenders
  Skeleton Spearman(1.2.1 - 10) -> Necromancer(1.4.1 - 40) -> Ghost(2.5.1 - 60) -> Wraith(3.6.1 - 80)
  
  Cavalry
  Death Knight(4.2.2 - 50) -> Nightmare Rider(6.3.2 - 80)
  
  Others:
  Shadow Demon(8.4.2 - 140), Black Dragon(5.2.2atar - 160)

Nature

• Nature mages could use an early footmen - a 2.1.1 or 2.2.1 unit. Gnoll Champion -> Griffin is ridiculous, but it's the only way of not stopping the gnoll chain. I toned down their unit costs. -//-> means that the units don't upgrade but belong to the same classification. I need to think on the possible drafting. All mages can now draft 1 unit per turn and it's up to their units whether they can utilize it (currently just some death mage units and humans) Griffins ignore movement penalties on mountains, hills and swamps.
  
  Footmen
  Beorning(2.2.1 - 25) -> Ent(3.3.1 - 40) -> Earth Elemental(6.5.1 - 80) -> Forest Giant(8.5.1 - 120)
  
  Defenders
  Gnoll(1.2.2 - 15) -> Gnoll Ranger(2.3.2 - 40) -> Gnoll Champion(3.4.2 - 60) -> Griffin(4.6.3 - 120)
  
  Flying offensive
  Pterodactyl(4.1.2atar - 100) -> Great Eagle(6.1.2atar - 140) -//-> Dragon(8.3.2atar - 240)
  
  Others
  Hawk (0.0.3atar - 10), Centaur(5.3.2 - 80)

Life

• Life mages are still strong, but I increased their costs a little. Clerics, Sorcerers and Wizards enslave enemies into Acolytes. Their upgrade potential is still insane.
  
  Defenders
  Acolyte(1.2.1 - 15) -> Cleric(2.3.1 - 30) -> Sorcerer(3.4.1 - 50) -> Wizard(4.6.2 - 80)
  
  Attackers
  Protector(2.1.2 - 25) -> Bowmaster(3.2.2 - 40 -> Champion(4.2.2 - 50) -> White Rider(5.3.2 - 70) -> Paladin(8.4.3 - 100)
  
  Others
  Dragon of Light(6.3.3atar - 200)

All race units upgrade directly to the next unit in line.

Lizardmen - pillage

Skink(1.2.1 - 10)
Pike Saurus(2.3.1 - 25)
Sword Saurus(3.4.1 - 40)
Toad Mage(4.5.1 - 60)
Stegadon Rider(6.6.2 - 90)


Dark Elves - see two squares

They remain offensive, but I upped their costs a bit.

Assassin (2.1.1 - 15)
Shade (4.1.1 - 30)
Nightblade (6.2.1 - 60)
Dark Horseman (8.2.2 - 100)
Shadow Rider (10.3.3 - 140)


Elves - blitz, ignores movement penalties in forests / ancient forests

Woodsman 2.1.2 (30)
Ranger (3.2.2 - 50)
War Dancer (4.3.2 - 60)
Glade Rider (6.3.3 - 90)
Elven Lord (8.4.3 - 120)


Trolls - +2hp

Ogre (3.2.1 - 30)
Troll (4.3.1 - 50)
Ettin (6.3.1 - 80)
Giant (8.4.1 - 100)
Night Troll (10.6.1 - 140)


Orcs - +1hp

More offensive power.

Snaga (2.1.1 - 10)
Black Orc (4.2.1 - 30)
Grunt (5.3.1 - 50)
Uruk (6.4.1 - 70)
Warg Rider (7.5.3 - 100)


Men - ambhibious, draft

Basic footmen.

Tribesman (2.2.1 - 20)
Warrior (3.3.1 - 30)
Raider (4.4.1 - 40)
Executioner (5.5.1 - 60)
Longblade (6.6.1 - 80)


Dwarves - +1hp

Miner (1.3.1 - 20)
Clansman (2.4.1 - 40)
Hammerhand (3.5.1 - 60)
Berserk (4.6.1 - 80)
Thunderer (5.7.1 - 100)


Goblins

Made them offensive

Snotling (1.1.1 - 5)
Goblin Spearman (3.1.1 - 15)
Goblin Archer (4.2.1 - 25)
Wolf Rider (5.2.2 - 40)
Wolf Chariot (6.3.3 - 60)


Ok, that was quite a thing to put together, but it was immensely useful too. I can't thank you enough for this.

 

[mrtn]

I started a couple of games yesterday, and the tech rate is still too slow. If you can research the basic techs in 45 instead of 50 turns on 100% science they're too expensive. This also means that the start of the game is quite boring, as you only can build one type of unit unless you find any race resources.
Regarding those new unit lines, the enslaving life units will/can be utilized much more by the human than by the AI, as those are all defenders. AI won't attack with them, but a human will if they see a chance.

 

[Drift]

Still too slow, eh? I've been having a hard time with the tech balancing. Last time I played it felt ok apart from the rather slow start. I was expansionist though and got some techs from goodyhuts. I didn't get to the next era though - tech costs become quite staggering there and I'm curious as how they play out. I'll try tinkering with them once again.

I'll also have to think about the enslavement a bit more.

Thanks for the feedback. The thread was quite dead for some time - nice to see it liven up.

 

[mrtn]

Can't you just lower the cost of the first techs? Lower it to half, or something, 22 turns for a tech on 100% seems better, at least. It should matter a bit if you get a river start or not and as it's now it won't.

 

[Drift]

Late game techs were very expensive too. I've been juggling them back and forth and last time I changed them, I made them more expensive. Now it feels like a clear mistake. There are no railroads so cities won't grow as big as in Civ3 - tech rate slows down, there are only two research buildings - tech rate slows down...

This is what I came up with: Old figures in parenthesis.

Magic I - 5 (8)
Magic II - 10 (20)
Magic III - 25 (40)
Magic IV - 50 (80)
Magic V - 80 (120)

Magic VI - 120 (180)
Magic VII - 160 (270)
Magic VIII - 200 (400)
Magic IX - 250 (600)
Magic X - 300 (900)

Better?

 

[Klyden]

The new line up looks great, but I would consider dropping enslave from the life mages. I don't know that it fits the character of the position, but rather something they would fight against. If anyone else had enslave, it might be one or two Chaos units. Life is very, very strong as it is.

As far as tech goes, I agree in that I got off to a great start on tech and pounded out a lot of improvements, played a position that had a science flavor and did not do much with the additional races tech to save time. I also did the wonder for 2 free advances and was still in the 6's for the most part for advancement. I was running science at around 40 percent most of the game.

Since the game ended on 383 and is 540 in length, I can see for the most part that I would not have made it to the end by the end of the game as techs were taking 15-18 turns at 40% (You can tinker with this on the game I sent you).

Also, I would consider raising the point victory to 75,000 or maybe even 100,000 instead of the 50,000 as with a long game with a lot of tech and VP locations is going to generate a lot of points, not to mention fighting. (Again, take a look at the save game).