Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod 2.0

[The Last Conformist]

Well, I've now stopped Tauron's initial assault, with some help from Sss'ra (!), who I bribed into an alliance by giving him one of my Orcs resources. I've lost one of Rjak's old cities, but in return snatched an ex-Oberic city, to the result that we've now both got more defendable borders. Of course, carrying the war into Tauron's homelands is gonna be tough.

That's partly due to the Firewall - something is wrong; I fired twelve shots at a city and got one result, and that's counting "bombardment failed" as a result - but also due to the hordes of Chaos Ettins he's fielding. With my best defenders being Necromancers, they're pretty tough to stop. Nothing's been made better by the fact that he smashed a stack of my catapults early on either.

I'm kind of giving up on keeping up in Science - I'm falling further and further behind currently. Well, throw enough Grunts and Fire Catapults at anything, and it'll break.

 

[Drift]

@TLC

I'll probably have to do something to the Firewall after all. +30% def improvement with no bombardment defense value for all cities? Not as strong as the old Firewall, but it would be brutal in cities if it was 50%.

I've also decided to drop one attack point from the Chaos Ettins.

- -

Nature mages have been so strong (Triple lead in a 12 mage game) in my test game that I've decided to try them with problematic corruption (used to be nuisance).

My debug game has continued to be interesting although watching all fights in a world war has now worn me down and I probably won't go much further with it. I played the power balancer and weaved a few alliances against the nature mages and life mages who were pummeling the poor death mages. My sympathies had always been on Mordja who was being punished by Merlin and when Merlin decided it was a good idea to join in an alliance against me, I wasted no time shipping a strike force of Champions and Sorcerers to his peninsula and taking away all his cities. Senile fool had all his armies in south fighting Mordja so it was easy pickings. Debug naturally helped as I knew what I was against. Felt like cheating, but I wanted to do some fighting instead of just watching things go by.

Rjak who was earlier the strongest death mage overextended himself and got into a war with all his neighbours. My interference of turning the two nature mages facing him against each other pretty much saved him. Lo Pan, Sss'ra and Oberic joined the fun and I have no idea who is fighting who. Probably Raven against everyone else although Sss'ra and Lo Pan have a subwar going on. They are on another continent so I haven't really cared about their alliances against me. I lead in power and run on fourth place in culture and score. No one from my own continent apart from Merlin has dared to fight me. It has been a while since I played a life mage and it has been fun. Fast units really help a lot and production/economy/research are all top notch.

Apart from the death mages dropping a little behind and nature mages being a bit too strong, faction balance has felt pretty good. Chaos mages aren't leading, but they are doing ok. Tauron is my next-door neighbour and even though I could have easily destroyed him in early game, he has since that built up his army and is now a force to be reckoned. Lo Pan and Sss'ra have held their own against Raven although their infrastructure and population aren't very impressive.

I'll see what the increased corruption for the nature mages and tweaking the Well of Souls so that the death mages build it, does for the situation.

 

[Psyringe]

@Drift:

- individual governments:
I see ... so when we had individual governments, we would (for example) need one life shrine for Merlin, one for Ariel, and so on ... it can be done, but requires some workarounds to make it work, it would also mess up the civilopedia a little and make it harder to tweak things (because it's easier to make mistakes when you have to apply a change to 9 buildings instead of just 3). As you said, too much hassle for MoM in its current state. I'll stash the idea somewhere for further use.

- relocating birds:
I see (again ). So as a rule, it is not possible in Civ3 to have a powerful airdropping unit that can not be misused as a troop transport. Or, more exactly: The more poerful an airdropper is (because of its carrying capacity), the better it can be abused as a troop transport. Seen in this light, reducing the carrying capacity indeed looks like the best solution ... making them stationary units would probably take them out of the game for the most part, because in the front line and especially in newly conquered cities you usually have other build priorities.

Your reduction of the carrying capacity makes it less attractive to use the birds instead of the ships, while we still are able to airdrop a small strike force near an underdefended enemy city.

- raising corruption for nature mages:
Sounds very reasonable to me. In both of my games, nature mages would have dominated if I had let them; in your test game too, and there was another game where Raven stomped two death mages and conquered his continent. They can bear the little tweaking you intend to do.

 

[The Last Conformist]

@TLC

I'll probably have to do something to the Firewall after all. +30% def improvement with no bombardment defense value for all cities? Not as strong as the old Firewall, but it would be brutal in cities if it was 50%.

Sounds good, I think. It'll be combinable with walls, so in some situations it will actually be better than the old versions (namely, when you've got the time to build a Wall in the city, and the enemy is relying on frontal assaults rather than artillery).

I've also decided to drop one attack point from the Chaos Ettins.

Have they been overpowering in other games? I imagine they'd be causing me less trouble if I hadn't been about a tech level behind the leading mages.

 

[mrtn]

@TLC
I've also decided to drop one attack point from the Chaos Ettins.

Sounds good. It feels strange when chaos has 7/3/1 units, when life has very good defense: 4/6/2, but really crappy attack: 5/3/2
And those +2 HP's on the ettin make them lethal, they defended successfully against my hellspawns' 6 attack most of the times.

 

[Psyringe]

Just had the time to browse a little through the beta 10 biq and found that Sss'ra is flagged as female. That came as a surprise, he was male in Master of Magic.

Side note: Why did you name the third life mage Oberic, not Horus? Oberic was Chaos/Nature in the original MoM. However I have to admit that the leaderhead looks a lot like Oberic. I've also seen that the leaderheads and wizards have been shifted around during the first betas, so there are probably good reasons for the naming as it is now.

 

[Drift]

Chaos Ettins: I don't know if they have been overpowering really, but I feel they fit in better in the unit system as 6.3.1. As a compensation, their price will be lowered by 10 points.

Nature mages: In addition to problematic corruption, I'm thinking of reducing their military police from 2 to 1 after all. This idea met some resistance when I introduced it earlier, but I feel it should be ok considering the strong form of the current nature mages.

@Psyringe

Sss'ra being female was a mistake. I may have thought of making him female at some point and I've forgotten to change it. Fixed now.

Oberic was chosen purely on looks. When I added him I was under the impression that Oberic was in half a life mage and I was somewhat surprised when I learned he was chaos/nature. However, I already had good leaderheads for nature and chaos and didn't have a good alternative for life. Horus would've been a nice one, but I didn't have graphics for him.

 

[Drift]

Beta Patch 10 - pre-release version 2 (0.5MB)

• Extract to Civ3\Conquests\Scenarios\ after installing Beta 9 AND Beta Patch 10 - pre-release version 1 successfully.

Last minute additions include:
- removal of "pays maintenance of trade installations" from essence of chaos. Replaced with "city growth causes +2 instead of +1". Chaos population was hurting due to forced labour and I felt it needed a boost.
- Lizardmen special building changed to act as a free Granary.
- Nature mages have problematic corruption and 1 military police
- In addition to all the other good stuff Well of Souls does for death mages, it also adds 1 culture, acts as free granary and costs nothing. This is easily the weirdest improvement I've ever added, but if it's what it takes to balance death mages, I'm ok with it.
- Firewall adds +30% defense to all cities. Becomes obsolete at the end of the second era.
- Mutual Protection pacts, Communication trades and Trade Embargoes moved to Life VIII from Ascendance.
- Chaos Ettins are 6.3.1 from 7.3.1 and 10 shields cheaper
- Fixed Energy Drain so that it actually does what it's supposed to do.

Changes that have already been announced in the earlier changelist:
- Support: 6/10/10
- Well of Souls improvement: upkeep 0, cost 20 shields, +50% tax, +50% research, +25% production. (Amazing bargain according to everyone else but the death mages themselves)
- Essence of Death makes 3 citizens content in each city instead of 2.
- Hurry and draft mood penalties raised to normal 20 turns.
- Some death mage units come with a cheaper pricetag.
- Cog taken away from the death mages and replaced with a combined warship and transport called Dreadhship (4.4.4 transports 3, costs 50, enslaves into new Dreadships, sinks at ocean)

New race specific ships:
- Turtle (4.4.4 transports 6, costs 40, sinks at ocean, requires lizardmen) comes around the same time with Cogs.
- Longship (4.2.4 transports 3, costs 30, sinks at ocean, requires men) comes around the same time with Galleys (seas accessible earlier for civs with men)
- Sunhawk (8.4.5, costs 60, sinks at ocean, requires elves) comes around the same time with Galleasses/Hawk Ships.

Some changes to the units:
- Griffins turned into offensive units: 8.3.3, costs 120, ignores movement penalties on mountains, hills and swamps.
- Carrying capacity of the bird units reduced with 1. Relocating is still possible.
- Warrior Monks produced by monasteries are now 1.3.0

Some improvement and wonder balancing.
- Monasteries pushed a bit further down the tech tree and their upkeep changed to 2.
- Small balancing here and there.

Government assimilation rates are as follows:
Death 12% (they kill the citizens)
Life 8%
Nature 4%
Chaos 4%

Node appearance ratios dropped back to 240 from 300.

Most defense bonuses reduced by 20%. (for example, mountains give 80% def bonus instead of 100%)

- -

Whew. Finally it's out of my hands. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this being one of the last steps leading to MoM 1.0. Deadline is creeping closer and I really want to release 1.0 within two weeks of time - preferably earlier. As I've mentioned here earlier, I'm getting married 12th of June and then we cruise United States for six weeks so I won't be around to fix any of the problems 1.0 may have. So, my hope is that I'll release 1.0 next week and have one week to release a fix if some bug got through after all. However, with the wedding and the trip drawing closer I have less and less time to dedicate to the project so all the niceties like changing science advisor's lines or diplomatic responses from leaders will have to wait for a future patch.

Happy playing everyone. Hope to hear from you.

 

[Phant]

Hmmmmm, you really are pilling the bonus into Well of Souls, but it looks like its going to become too easy for Death to now get a culture victory, so if you havent how about reducing the culture of thier shrine by 1?

Going to start a game a Rjak now

 

[Drift]

Good idea Phant.

AI wouldn't get a culture victory as a death mage no matter what - death mages are always at the bottom of the pack in culture and Well of Souls isn't enought to bring them up from there. However, player would probably benefit from it more. I'll do it for the next (which is hopefully 1.0) version.

I feel a little sorry for having to rush the 1.0 like this. If I had the time, I would let the testing a bit more time, but time is one thing I don't have at the moment.

 

[Phant]

Some things i just spotted in the game i'm curently in.

Well of Souls - 2 culture per turn
Palace - 2 culture per turn

And the civlopedia for the Death shrine says 1 culture per turn, but i dont know if thats true as i havent built one yet

 

[Drift]

Culture producing buildings start producing more culture as the game progresses. Hopefully the WoS won't become too powerful culturewise. I just checked the civilopedia in game and it says that death shrines produce 2 culture per turn - maybe you looked at a wrong figure or something?

 

[Phant]

Just remembered that when i saw some producing 1 culture/turn

As for the civlopedia entry, i must still be half asleep

 

[Drift]

That's ok. BTW I may well remove that 1 culture after I run some tests without it. If death mages build WoS sufficiently early without it, it's gone.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I think no cost on the Well of Souls is a bit over (under?) the top. Ten shields, perhaps?

 

[Drift]

I wanted to make sure it got built by AI and ten shields was so minimal cost that there wasn't really a point in it having a cost at all. It does feel a bit stupid and artificial though, I grant you that.

I'll try to test it with other setups. Maybe I can do something about it. It's just that because death mages get dropped behind right from the start, they need the boost right away, not at the end of the first era when they are already hurting.

 

[The Last Conformist]

'Nother idea: Up the culture of the VoS to two, give it a happiness boost, and kill the Death Shrine. Up cost to about what the Death Shrine used to cost.

 

[Drift]

Hmm. Definitely a good idea. Death shrines are usually built quite early as they are culture producers. I believe it's early enough so that the death mages receive the push they've been needing in early game. This is my number #1 option at the moment.

 

[Drift]

Here's a quick fix patch that combines Death Shrine into Well of Souls (+1 happiness, +2 culture, 1 upkeep). Costs 60 shields (30 after death mage religious trait). Comes at Death Magic II. Just extract the zip to Civ3\Conquests\Scenarios\ after installing Pre-release 2.

 

[Phant]

In my current game, after the Age of expansion, Mordja were in 3rd, Rjak(me) were in 5th, and Vlad was in 9th.

At the current point in time, we've just finished the first round of wars, where Rjak wiped out the Sss'ra, and Tlaloc, Raven and Tauron, with maybe a 4th mage i've forgotten about, grouped up to destroy Mordja.
With only 10 magi left, Rjak are in second, and Vlad are in 8th. Tlaloc (again) are in 1st
Rjak are currently rebuilding thier army after lossing 95% of it, in destroying Sss'ra, in preperation for an assult on Ariel.

edit The Weel Of Souls, is brilliant. I dont know if the others were building it, but its injected new life into Death mages, and i'm managing to keep up with the AI in the tech race (helped out somewhat by the spell of knowledge, but even without it, i wouldnt be too far behind)