Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod 2.0

[mrtn]

azzacanth, did you remember to allow the space race victory in the start up screen? I've done that error before (though not with MoM). The "start space race"-wonder is still buildable if you haven't, but none of the space ship parts...

@Drift: There's a bug in the F4 screen, there are 3 tabs now, but your background still show just two.

 

[coolake]

I'd just like to add a couple of comments. Firstly, excellent mod drift. I've been spending many a late night playing it. I've just resigned on a game playing as mordja. I normally play emperor on a standard or large map. I got of to a reasonable start but slowly was being beaten by merlin. I noticed that all three death mages were close to the bottom for score and power. I found it hard to keep my army numbers high due to the following reasons. General waste problems with death mages; High loss of units when i'm attacking (low attack attributes and slow). Loss of the ability to draft. Downgrading of skeleton spearman to def of 2. Perhaps I just played a bad game, but I'm of the opinion they need a boost. I thought that drafting was very characteristic for them and offset their negatives.

 

[Drift]

@mrtn

Why do they keep changing the interface?

I really wish I had documented the interface color job better. I think I need to go trial and error with finding the correct combination of effects I've used.

Thanks for noticing it.

 

[Drift]

I'd just like to add a couple of comments. Firstly, excellent mod drift. I've been spending many a late night playing it. I've just resigned on a game playing as mordja. I normally play emperor on a standard or large map. I got of to a reasonable start but slowly was being beaten by merlin. I noticed that all three death mages were close to the bottom for score and power. I found it hard to keep my army numbers high due to the following reasons. General waste problems with death mages; High loss of units when i'm attacking (low attack attributes and slow). Loss of the ability to draft. Downgrading of skeleton spearman to def of 2. Perhaps I just played a bad game, but I'm of the opinion they need a boost. I thought that drafting was very characteristic for them and offset their negatives.

Thanks for playing.

I wasn't sure how drafting worked so I removed it as a test of whether it would reduce the insane amount of units death mages were putting out. Also, embryodead's stance on the matter of draft is that it tends to cripple AI and I guess I was affected by that too. It may well make a return, but I want to observe the effects of last patch a bit first. The other problem with draft was that I couldn't decide which units should be draftable. However, rest assured - I'm intent on balancing the mod for as long as majority of the people playing it feel it's ready.

Skeleton Spearmen now come at Death magic II, but they may still need some kind of a boost. I'll think about it. Death mage units are rather slow and not as offensive as chaos mages, but in general they have pretty good arsenal IMO. The new Death Knight (4.2.2) and Nighmare Rider(6.3.2) changed the way they play quite a bit. However, if they can't build enough of their units and maximize their support bonuses, it doesn't matter how good their units are. Draft could really be the answer.

Thank you for the feedback. It feels really good to get this much comments.

To all:

What kind of units should death mages be able to draft? Defensive units or footmen? How strong should the strongest draftable unit be?

 

[coolake]

I would think the drafting of footmen would be more appropriate. I think that the drafting in the warhammer mod employed by the Khemri (Undead) is a little overpowered. From memory they can draft all the way till a city gets to 1 pop. So the tactic was to take a city then draft it till it hits 1 pop. Very powerful and also the unit had very good stats 3att 2def compared to the top infantry of something like 5att. If you could only draft whith pops of 7+ as in vanilla civ I wouldn't think it overpowing especially when combined with the worst corruption and waste rates. I would think that the 3att 2def crypt skeleton warrior would be appropriate from the start. Then perhaps a 5att 3 def skeleton for the 2nd age. (Death magic 6)

 

[Drift]

Yup, it's probably better to choose two or maybe three footmen units for the draft. Crypt skeletons can't be it though because they cost no maintenance, but their stats sound good.

More suggestions are still welcome.

 

[Klyden]

The game I am currently playing as Vlad continues to be quite interesting. I am resigned I will probably loose, but I have been having some fun with it.

The life mages have sort of taken over this game as Merlin and Freya have tag teamed up on several other positions. The first big hatchet job they did was on Tauron and they basically trashed him in nothing flat. Both are fielding the upper end life mage units with a mix of Paladins and other cav type units. Tauron dropped trading me a death node, so I attacked in hopes of getting one. I was suprised at the weak defense he mounted (but then figured out he was at war with Merlin and Freya). Tauron's position was large, but not very strong with a lot of tundra. He also had access to trolls and that combined with their high expense meant he probably did not have much for units. I saw mostly devils and very few offensive units and a troll or two.

At any rate, I got probably 5 cities from Tauron and also got orcs as a resource, but no death node and I can't get anyone to trade it to me, so I can't build any of the upper death units. Fortunately, I now have access to elves, orcs and lizards, so have a good selection of units to build from.

The other death mage in the game is also at the bottom of the heap and has no death node either. Best unit he seems to have is the 3-3-1 unit and he has a pile of them in his capital.

Nature mages seem to be in the middle of the pack and I have had Raven come after me 3 times. One of the other nature mages came after me for a short period of time with mostly earth elementals. Very tough as I really did not have a 5 point attacker to deal with them. I managed to blunt the attacks without losing anything and quickly made peace.

Lo Pan was doing well against one of the life mages, but now has 2 life mages after him.

I am finishing off Acendency from the first age, but the leaders are up to at least 8 in some categories. I think Merlin has close to 50k in points and is simply huge. On the power graph, the life mages have the lead.

My own starting position is taking a toll as I loose 2-3 pop a turn due to disease and it is somewhat frustrated as my capital has been as low as 5 pop at times. I am currently massing on my death mage neighbors door even though I am on good terms with him, I feel I am going to have to attack him because I need the space and conquest points. I can also get close to the death node that Raven took away from him and then see about attacking the 4 cities that Raven has on the continent and get a death node myself. I am currently working on trying to get the Glade Rider unit of the elves (6-3-3). I have one corps marker open for this unit and should have a second complete in time for those units to get stuck in there.

One note. Are Ancient Forests considered forests for movement purposes for the units that can move through regular forests? If not, they should be.

Will try to post some screen shots later and can send you some saved games at various points if you would like Drift.

 

[Klyden]

Well, my assault on Rjak did not work out very well. My assault with probably 30 or so units was met with 60 plus of the Shadowmen and I failed to take a city before being forced back on the defensive and hoping he would not come after me too heavily.

I probably should have waited until I got the Glade Riders instead of trying to use the War Dancers to give me a bit more of an offensive edge, although given the numbers the enemy had, I think it would have been marginal help anyway.

Drift, I can see about sending you some saved game files as the boards won't let me post them here.

I will be trying out another game here shortly as something other than a Death mage. This is an unusual game in that I had a lot of other resources available, but could not really depend on using death mage units so it is hard to comment on them except I do feel they skeleton spearman needs to be upgraded to a 1-3-1 unit.

For drafting, I would perhaps set it up high (like have to have a minimum 6 to be able to draft). That allows the cities to stay at a reasonable level, yet be able to draft without having to put in the city growth improvement if you are not near water. (I am on a streak of about 5 in a row without being next to water).

 

[Drift]

@Klyden
- Death mages shouldn't suffer disease. I have probably forgot to include swamps to the list.
- Ancient forests are treated as forests when it comes to units that negate movement in forests.

The game seems very interesting. You can send the saved game in the same address you used last time - I would love to see them. Are there any balance issues that you've come across? For example, were the Earth Elementals too tough (I personally feel that they might be a bit too strong)?

Drafting would require >6 population. I'll see about the skeleton spearmen. They do need a little something.

Thanks again.

 

[Klyden]

Should the elven units be able to move through the forests like nature mage units do?

 

[azzacanth]

I'll look into the Rune Mastery. I have never played that far ( ), but the one time I tested it, I think it worked ok. I'm not sure though so I'll check it out.

As for the screens having text in the wrong place, my guess is that you don't have the latest patch for Conquests. They show up right with me. Either patch to 1.22 or if you wish to stay in your current version, delete labels.txt from Civ3\Conquests\Scenarios\MoM\Text\.

I can't make the minimum reseach time different for different eras. It's down to 6 in the latest test patch though.

Thanks for the feedback and nice to hear you like the mod. I'll look into the spacerace ASAP.

Yeah, I was looking through the last page of the thread and wrote out a huge reply to a bunch of stuff, went to post it and I had timed out by then and had to re-log-in, I clicked back to recover my post and...... You do not have permission to view this page. So I could've said a lot more but I just couldn't bring myself to do it at that time, I was tired :/

I just upgraded to 1.22 yesterday so I'll test out labels and dates and stuff again.

As far as the space race goes, while starting my next game and glancing through the options I realized.. I may have turned the space race victory off and not remembered that. I noticed it seems to have a default of "off" in my game making. oh well.



btw as for raven liking the pterodactyls.... He thinks they're the best friggin thing since sliced bread.

You may want to increase the cost a bit as it's annoying to have a city next to a chaos node (playing chaos) a screen or two south of the heart of your empire, fairly inland (3-4 spaces from the edge of the second level culture sphere, so really some 7-8 spaces from the choas) and have raven drop ONE pterodactyl on the coast and come in the next turn and destroy said city. (I had a devil and a fanatic in it, what more do you need? :/) If he had taken it over I would've taken it back but he destroyed it... just sort of took the heart out of that game. :/

 

[Drift]

@Klyden

Elves are supposed to be able to move through forests in similar fashion as the nature mage units do. Don't they?

@azzacanth

I hate timing out when writing long replies. Doesn't happen too often these days, but I often copy the reply to clipboard before posting.

I'll have to look into the Pterodactyls. It's difficult to balance them right. I want them to be a flavor unit in the nature mage armies - not a mainstay, but the AI may try to build them as a mainstay, regardless of the cost. I'm very sloppy defender myself so I believe I may get into a lot of trouble with them.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I played some more turns in my Tlaloc game during the weekend. I had almost eliminated Ariel when suddenly Raven turned up with a pile of Ents and a horde of Centaurs. It looks I'll be able to fend him off fairly easily - he went straight into my big Ent/Catapult stack, but I'll have to leave Ariel alone till he accepts peace, which of course means I can pretty much rely on a city or two flipping back to her.

 

[Klyden]

They did not in the game I sent you. (Part of my strat in ambushing my neighbor is that I had a large number of elven units and they could move and attack the city closest to me when I declared war). This turned out not to be the case.

I have started playing another game as Lo-Pan. Lots of islands and I have a interesting starting spot with 1 of each node and the dark elves and that is it. Have 7 cities on my little island and have a life mage and a death mage for neighbors close to me. Will see how it goes.

 

[Drift]

@TLC

So the nature mages prefer Centaurs as well. It could be that the pterodactyls get dropped off the build lists after they get centaurs. Good to know.

@Klyden
I'm really sorry. War Dancers were the only elven unit that didn't have the "ignore movement penalties in forests and ancient forests". I'll fix it for next patch.

I checked out the savegames quickly. Thank you, interesting stuff. I'll look into them better tomorrow - it's getting late here in Finland.

Nice to hear that you finally have some luck with the nodes - they were really sparse in those savegames. I should probably test the map generating with bigger maps too.

 

[Klyden]

No worries, that is what play testing is for. Good we could find it now rather than later.

 

[The Last Conformist]

@TLC

So the nature mages prefer Centaurs as well. It could be that the pterodactyls get dropped off the build lists after they get centaurs. Good to know.

Um, you realize that this is BETA 8, and those are the old 1.2.2 Centaurs?

 

[Drift]

Um, you realize that this is BETA 8, and those are the old 1.2.2 Centaurs?

Sorry, I had forgotten that your Tlaloc game was running beta 8. Now that I think of it, I was pretty impressed by the way you shrugged off a horde of 5.2.2 Centaurs when you had just Ents and catapults.

 

[Drift]

I'm now planning these changes to the unit system (they are a result of me sitting down to think about the 'flying' units in the mod. I don't like the way they force players to defend so deep from the border and the way they can conquer cities and often burn them down.)

Pterodactyl (nature mages)
4.1.2(atar) => transports 2 units 4 squares away, costs 60

Great Eagle (nature mages)
6.1.2(atar) => transports 3 units 6 squares away, costs 90

Dragon (nature mages)
8.3.2(atar) => 0.5.2(atar) bombardment 12.1.2 (lethal land and sea), cost 100

Dragon of Light (life mages)
6.3.3(atar) => 0.4.2(atar) bombardment 10.1.2 (lethal land and sea), cost 100

Helldrake(chaos mages)
7.2.2(atar) => 0.2.2(atar) bombardment 12.1.2 (lethal land and sea), cost 80

Black Dragon (death mages)
5.3.2(atar) => 0.3.2(atar) bombardment 10.1.2 (lethal land and sea), cost 80

Tell me what you think.

Edit: also, I'm introducing Skeleton Guard(3.2.1 - 30) and Death Guard(5.3.1 - 50) units. There's no point in building them as there are better alternatives at the same cost, but they can be drafted. Skeleton Guard comes at Death Summons and Death Guard at Death Magic VII. They form their own upgrade chain. Current graphics are simply Crypt Skeleton and Cursed Legionary as they share their stats.

 

[Drift]

Well, here's a new test patch. Changes include all the things changed in the last test patch, the unit changes listed in the above post and in addition to them:
- Earth Elementals are 6.4.1 instead of 6.5.1
- New victory point graphics
- Fixed graphics for the F4 screen.
- Cog doesn't fire its cannons, only arrows
- Added icons for Dragon Turtle and Skeleton Spearman
- War Dancers ignore movement penalties in forests and ancient forests.
- Maybe something else.

Extract to Civ3\Conquests\Scenarios\ after installing Beta 8 and Beta 9