Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod 2.0

[Gladi]

@The Last Conformist
You are running pretty old version if you have 1.2.2 centaurs .
Klyden- Are you running the test patch- with 75 turn maximum? Otherwise it sound just like too much cost of tech.

 

[Klyden]

No. I have the version just before. The tech costs I think have been lowered, but the max has not been changed yet.

Just an update on my game. I have defeated Oberic on the big island that he shared with Morja. He now has two cities left on two different small islands and I am at peace. It is now a period of consolidation and getting the workers going on improvements. I almost have Chaos V done, so there will be another round of production improvements.

Something that is a bit strange is on occasion, I have gotten the message that my "mystics have discovered the secrets of XYZ tech". I have not traded for anything, but in each case, the game gave me tech I did not have. Is this from taking out someone's capital or is one of the wonders I captured broken? At any rate, I have gotten a couple of techs out of it, which will help. Both Oberic and Freya are ahead on tech, but not by much.

My losses against Oberic were a bit heavier as he had the 3-4-1 defenders and was also able to counter attack with the 3-2-2's. The terrain was a bit rougher over there as well. I could tell he was rather weaken with his war with Morja, although he still had something like 12 units in his capital. Morja had stripped almost all the improvements around each of the cities. Interesting.

I have found Sssra as well. He is by himself on a smallish island (5 or 6 cities) to the east of my position. He has three nodes, but unfortunately, chaos is not one of them. Pity for him. Position appears to be weak.

 

[azzacanth]

Addendum: Just took Ariel's last mainland city, just to find that the bastardess had a couple of island colonies just south of the north pole. I accepted peace in return for a pile of techs. She's far away enough now that I don't have to worry much about flips, and her culture is pretty weak anyway.

That sort of thing seems to amuse ariel.. had the same problem with her on a 80% pangea. Two little island chains way up north covered in badly struggling Life cities


Btw, what is "flips"?

 

[Psyringe]

@azzacanth: a city "flip"ping is just another word for a cultural takeover, i.e. a city switching sides because of cultural influence.

Regarding special races' city buildings: I don't have much experience here as I played only one game and had no races until late midgame, but I don't see a problem in poweful bonuses from them even at low tech. For example in my game I liked that Tauron, while low on tech, could build dwarven fortresses to strengthen his defenses. This diversifies the game, and should not be overpowering, since these resources are very scarce anyways.

Progress report on my game: I just killed Mordja and now own my continent, which is the largest in this game. Tlaloc's island will be my next objective. He has hordes of creatures running around there, but nothing that should stop my shadow demons. (Btw, I may miss something here, but to me it seems that shadow demons are stronger than black dragons. The dragons can get to the enemy cities faster, but are usually too weak to take them out without suffering substantial losses themselves. Also, with carrion beasts around, getting to the enemy is not so much of a problem anyways. Six tiles of airdrop range makes them very strong. They not only bring my armies right before the enemies door, they also (at least in my current game) nullify the need for ships, as I can bridge the gap between the continents and islands with them.

 

[Drift]

@Psyringe

- I'll look into the tobacco city screen thing. It's supposed to be fixed, but I can't be sure until I test it. Version number for mod description is a very good idea.
- I probably should increase the range of Poison Clouds. 3 is too little. I also have to think about the Carrion Beasts and Great Eagles (they are identical). Maybe reduce range a bit - I don't want them nullifying the need of ships.
- How strong has the unit creating ability of Vampires and Shadow Demons been? As for the Black Dragons being weaker than Shadow Demons, it's as it should be. (I'm not sure which patch you are running, are they attackers or bombarders?)


@Klyden

Hopefully the next patch will fix the issues with economy/science. Those aren't nice figures you're giving.

Interesting stuff regarding the race resources. Goblins could get the life tree and Men the Fishery. I guess that would leave elves with the Magistrate. I don't feel comfortable giving Fishery mana/energy bonus though - don't want to risk making it too strong. I'd rather fiddle with their unit stats.

Dark Elf altar was meant as a cheap improvement you could build to conquered cities and get their borders expanding. Also, if built early, it should gain pretty large cultural bonuses by the end of the game. Research bonus is something I don't want to do - it's strong and potentially dangerous for tech balance. I can consider something else though. I'll also look into the tech tree positions of these improvements.

Very strange about the "our mystics have discovered..." I have no idea what is causing it.

Very interesting game you have going. I'm especially happy about the way Mordja has 'corrupted' Oberic's lands by pillaging them. It was exactly what I wanted the death mages to do - loads of units offer loads of opportunities for pillaging. I looked at the savegame and was pretty bummed by the horrible unit/support ratio - changes in the next patch do come for a need.

@Gladi

I don't have any ideas for making the AI avoid the 'useless' race resource techs. I still think the elves are pretty tough. Naturally, it depends on what mage you are playing.


@TLC

Changing the dates has been haunting me for some time now, I've been meaning to do it, but always forget it. Will do for next patch.

--

Whew, thank you everyone. I don't respond for a day and then I have quite a bit of catching up to do. It's a very good sign of the mod's prospects and makes me a very happy modder. I hope the next patch will pay off. If it doesn't, at least it's not the fault of me not getting enough feedback - this has been awesome.

I've been a bit busy this weekend and haven't had time to do much for the mod. I'll try to get something done tonight though. More again during next week. I'm not very far from being able to release a sneak peek of the tech tree for you guys to check out. I have a feeling it's going to cause suggestions of moving things to different techs so it's better to do it in advance of releasing the patch itself.

 

[mrtn]

You can have nine or more luxuries, but only the first eight count wrt happiness, IIRC.

AFAIR you get the effect of nine luxs, but you can only see 8 luxs in the city screen. It's just a cosmetic problem.

 

[The Last Conformist]

If so, it's potentially quite overpowering; 9 luxuries would be 25 happy faces! I guess I shall have to do a test, because my memory is telling me you don't. Could have changed since PTW, for all I know, of course.

Update: After I had taken the richer half of Merlin's domains (incl Avalon), Lo Pan decided that it was a good idea to a) declare war on Raven, and b) send alot of Chaos Knights and Warriors thru my turf to get there. I demanded that he withdraw, which he refused. So I signed MA and RoP with Raven against him, and accepted peace with Merlin in return for a further alliance against Lo Pan.

If I can take out Lo Pan, I figure I'll declare myself in an unassailable position, and start off a new game.

 

[Klyden]

Update for my game as Lo Pan.

I now have 31 cities. My military is 182 units with 150 allowed.

Income is 468 and is broken out as follows:

Science 108
Ent 52
Corruption 110
Maint 148
Unit costs 32

I can now at least reduce the time below 50 on science projects. I have Chaos V done and have done the war college, so it is corps marker time. My best production city is around 21 (after corruption), so looking at 20 turns. My other issue is any other war I start for the most part will be overseas, so not like I can produce corps markers and fill them up. If something comes up before long, it looks like it will be Chaos Ettins in the corps marker. (hmm.. 7-3-2 with lots of hps.. hmm.. )

Some further scouting has shown that Ayriel has a couple of nodes, including nature and has the Gnoll ranger. No luxuries for her that I can see on any of her territory. Sssra has no luxuaries either that I can see. For Oberic, he has no nodes or luxuries that I can see in his remaining locations.

Just going by seeing two other civs destroyed, there is probably going to be someone big left out there. Good chance it could be Raven (seen him complete several wonders).

On the races, I think it does make a big difference on who you pair them up with. In regards to the elves, I had them as a death mage the last game and I found their mobility an invaluble addition to my military, not to mention I did not have access to a death node for higher death units. Most of the game, I had my choice between elves, lizards, and later orcs. I would take the elves over those two as lizards are geared more for defending. Orcs are ok but are slow for a lot of the game and are not really defenders. The extra hp is nice. The big thing for the elves was their ability to do the production mod.

On the other hand, I have not built a single DE unit in my current game as Lo Pan. The best DE unit I can build right now is the 4-1-1 and while it is cheap, chaos warriors (which I have not been building either) are a bit better, especially long term. DE units would be more handy for just about anyone other than a Chaos mage.

*edit* Sent you another saved game Drift

 

[Psyringe]

@Drift:

Reducing the Carrion Beast's drop range to 5 or 4 might make sense. however it's still possible that I was just lucky that the gaps between the continents and islands were exactly five tiles wide, so that the range of the carrion beasts was just enough to drop units there. I fnally built death fortresses anyways because they can carry more units.

Unit creating ability: It's hard to tell how powerful this ability is from the experience of my game, because when I got vampires and shadow demons, I already was in a position to conquer the rest of the world due to the size of my empire. I observed that in the end about 80-90% of my vampires were created units. I also observed that attacking a stack of shadow demons is very hard, because even if they don't have defenders with them, they create them during combat. This ability also made it easy to steamroll Mordja and Tlaloc, because I didn't have to worry about producing defending units (something I usually tend to underestimate in Civ3; I usually build too few defenders for my attacking armies). I think this subject needs further study.

Black dragons are attackers in my game, I play beta 9 with update 1. I started before update 2 came out.

I just finished my game, triggering a domination victory after capturing Tlaloc's last city. I own the large continent plus Tlaloc's island, the other continent is divided between Freya and Raven. Oberic actually managed to survive on a remote island. I have a couple of savegames (3300 BC, 1450 BC, 470 BC, 90 BC, 470 AD, 790 AD, 1120 AD, 1450 AD, 1585 AD, 1745 AD) - just tell me if you're interested in them, I'll keep them for a while.

At the moment I'm pondering whether I should start another game or wait for the next patch, which (as it seems) will have some substantial changes. Any advice?

Again, thanks for creating a brilliant mod, I'm looking forward to my next game. Keep up the good work.

 

[Klyden]

Looks like this game has come to an end with the discovery of Raven's absolute dominance.

I am playing Lo Pan (Red area at the top of the map). SSsra is to the west and is in Orange. Oberic is white and Freya is the small green area to the south east. Raven is the huge land mass to the south.

While I have caught up a bit on tech, Raven has 7 luxaries and 7 race resources at his command, including the dwarves. The only unit I have that could probably touch that is the chaos ettens and I just don't have the base to crank out enough to make a difference, not to mention taking a chance that the ships sink on the way there. Raven also has double the victory points I have and we both control 3 capitals.

Interesting to note the starting locations in this game. Raven's land mass had 3 starters on it. (His two opponents were death mages). 2 others started in relatively weak positions and there were the 3 of us that started in close proximity to each other in the north.

I also continue to get tech from other positions without asking for it and no spying being done. I got a message "We have learned the Secrets of Death Magic V from Raven and Oberic". I also later got another tech as well. I think it is related to the wonder I captured from Morja, but not sure.

Drift, this is several turns after I sent the last saved game and I can send this one as well if you would like. Just let me know.

Will be updating to the latest version and giving something a try, but not quite sure yet.

 

[Drift]

@Klyden

Yes please, send the savegame over. Seems very interesting, especially about Raven and the two death mages.

I'll really have to really look into that tech gaining thing. You've also given me something to think about the race resource units. Lizards especially might be more useful for most mages.


@Psyringe

Thank you about the more detailed feedback about Vampires and Shadow Demons. I'll have to consider carefully what to do with them. They may be a bit too strong. If you wish to send me a savegame, the latest one is most useful.I can retire and see how things went. My address is driftwood@sunpoint.net


@Everyone

How are the armies? I have to admit that I've never used them in MoM so how strong is the ability to build armies? I've never been a big fan of the concept as it in my opinion just complicates the combat system with another variable, but as people usually like them, I've incluced them in the mod.

As for "starting a new game or waiting for next patch", I can't really give an answer. Don't do it if it feels like a choir, but if you feel like you want to play, then by all means, go for it. Don't feel obliged to report about it though - you can just have fun and leave the reporting to future. Next patch will come along in the near future and even though there's a lot to be learned from the feedback based on older patches, it's always most beneficial for testers to have the latest patch. Feedback based on older version will still be greatly appreciated by me, but it's perfectly fine to wait for the next patch or just play for fun in the meantime.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Update: Lo Pan's oversized army managed to take one of my cities - man, those Chaos Knights are tough! - but I've no retaken it, and intend to shorten the front by smashing his eastern dominions. If he wants to continue throw troops into the smallish area 'tween our capitals, fine by me.

Re: Armies, I not really very fond of them, and they skew game balance in the human's favour. If you don't like them, get rid of them, is my advice.

Edit: Do you expect the new patch is gonna turn up before next weekend? If yes, I'm not gonna start a game with the present one.

 

[Psyringe]

@Klyden: Do you own the Spell of Knowledge wonder? It acts like a Greaz Library and gives you techs as soon as two other players know them. The message does not inform you how you got to that knowledge so it might be a little confusing.

@Drift: I'll send you my latest save later today.

Vampires / Shadow demons: I wouldn't change their unit creation ability yet, I still think it's a cool feature. I'm sure it can be exploited, e.g. you could go "vampire harvesting" when you attack weaker civs. But so can leaders; its the decision of the player whether he uses this technique or not. If it turns out to be too powerful, it's easy to change. One possibility is to make two types of vampire, a "vampire lord" that the player can build and a "vampire" that is created by victories of this unit. Both could share the same stats and the same graphics. This prevents vampires from growing exponentially in number. However the AI would probably be too dumb to recognize the difference and to protect the "vampire lord" better then the other vampires in order to profit from its special ability.

Another possibility is to lower the vampire's defense. Newly created units start as regulars and are vulnerable when young. However this might mess up the upgrade chains. Also, vampires tend do die a lot, given that they have an offense of six and show up at a time where a defense of four is usually available to the other players.

So since there is no "ideal" solution, but several possibilities that could be implemented with (probably) not too much hassle, I think you could safely leave this feature as is until further feedback rolls in. I'd be especially interested in how the AI employs vampires and shadow demons, has anyone experienced this yet? I still think it would be cool to be floded with vampires by an enemy death mage.

Armies: I like the possibility of having them, although I don't use them aggressively, i.e. I don't plan my battles in order to maximize elite victories in order to get leaders early. Since the AI doesn't use armies, this always feels like an exploit to me. However I do use them when I get a leader. In my recent game I got my first leader way, way back in the end game, where it didn't make much of a difference, but helped me finishing the game quicker, which is a good thing imho. (Side note: It took a long time before my units reached elite status, because I lost so many of my attackers.)

 

[Drift]

@Klyden

Psyringe is right, it's the Spell of Knowledge giving those techs. I thought of it but I didn't realise you hadn't passed the tech point where it becomes obsolete. Sorry.

I didn't have time to study the savegame properly yet, but a quick check showed Raven absolutely steamrolling the two death mages. Scary stuff. The two expanded considerably slower than Raven, which is fine as nature mages are supposed to be fast expanders, but what isn't exactly fine is how they both fell without much of a fight. Raven did have top class military wonders though - Spider Mastery, Dimensional Rift, Enchanted Warcraft and Firewall. I guess it was a fluke, Mordja was holding his own after all, but it did give an example of a nature mage dominating very convincingly.

@Psyringe

Interesting idea with the Vampire lord. I believe this is how WH-Mod does it. I'll leave both Vampire and Shadow Demon as they are for now. Like you said, tweaks are easy to do if they are needed. Thank you again.

 

[The Last Conformist]

@Drift: Could you give a rough guestimate on when the next patch is coming? Like before next weekend or not?

 

[Drift]

Hopefully before next weekend, but I don't want to make promises I may have to break. I'll probably know better tomorrow when I have some time to really ook at where I'm at with the patch.

 

[Klyden]

A-ha!

Yes, I captured the spell of knowledge from Morja.

Just as a side note on armies. I do have a tendancy to try for them. I will try to get as many elite units as I can and also use them in places where they can usually win to maximize my chances.

As far as the corps themselves, early I have a tendancy to put more mobile units in them and use them as a fire brigade to counter enemy moves or as a first attacker in to break the first unit on defense. I will also wait for better units a lot of times if I am doing well without them. That is one thing about corps markers; you can't upgrade the units in them unfortunately from what I have seen.

Chaos is about perfect for using combined arms approach. Devils go in with the warriors or knights. (I shoot for difficult terrain). The enemy has to either attack my strong defenders on good terrain or I get to use my offensive units on the next turn.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Lo Pan is being absolutely horrid on me with Chaos Warrior/Berserk stacks. More than once, I've redlined a such stack on a mountain with Catapults/Fire Catapults, only to lose a healthy Vet Shade trying to defeat a redlined Berserk.

But at least their slow, and CWs don't really have the power to take out Ents fortified in big cities. What I really dread are the CKs.

 

[Drift]

Early Chaos is really bordering on overpowering. Chaos Knights are fearsome - a few games back I was a lot bigger as a death mage than my neighbouring Sss'ra, but my intelligence of his cities showed that his Chaos Knights would probably take my army down with them. Have to keep an eye on it.

I've done some balancing for the next patch today and I think it's safe to say that I can get a patch of somekind out before weekend.

 

[Drift]

I removed the War Guild (build armies without a leader). Armies made by leaders are still in. This can still be debated, but I tend to agree with TLC that it skews game balance in favor of human player.

Here's my current setup for governments. This is by no means final so please comment and criticise as much as you feel is necessary. I would especially need feedback on the support rates, corruption/waste, hurry methods and nature mages having enchanted springs in all cities.

Death
Corruption: Problematic
Unit support (town/city/metropolis): 4/8/12
Worker Rate: 100%
Draft limit: 1
Military police limit: 2
Hurry Method: Forced
Standard Trade Bonus: No

- Essence of Death (units heal in enemy territory, +2 happy in all cities)
- Crypts (Crypt skeleton/1o turns)
- No disease

Chaos
Corruption: Problematic
Unit support (town/city/metropolis): 2/4/8
Worker Rate: 100%
Draft limit: 1
Military police limit: 3
Hurry Method: Forced
Standard Trade Bonus: Yes

- Essence of Chaos (stronger armies, more leaders, trade installations for free)

Life
Corruption: Minimal
Unit support (town/city/metropolis): 2/3/6
Worker Rate: 100%
Draft limit: 2
Military police limit: 2
Hurry Method: Paid
Standard Trade Bonus: Yes

- +25% production bonus city improvement
- Monastery (Warrior Monk/10 turns)
- doubled "wealth" improvement

Nature
Corruption: Nuisance
Unit support (town/city/metropolis): 2/3/6
Worker Rate: 100%
Draft limit: 1
Military police limit: 1
Hurry Method: Paid
Standard Trade Bonus: Yes

- Irrigate without fresh water, bridges from the start
- Essence of Nature (no population pollution and enchanted springs to all cities)
Edit: Essence of Nature is undoable. It would have to be a small wonder and small wonders can't place improvements to cities.