Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod 2.0

[nullspace]

I think the start of second era is the hardest part of cost balancing.

So, Chaos Ettin and Earth Elemental are definite candidates for a cost reduction, EE especially - it's cost was meant to be 70 so it's extra expensive at the moment. I believe there are others as well, for example Cursed Legionaries can't stay at 45 if Chaos Ettins come down to 50 (would 50 be enough BTW?). I'm open to suggestions on the matter.

Yeah, tech advancement around there is wierd. Sage wizards get their free techs, and sometimes it takes a very long time to get your V tech, since you can only buy and sell them with wizards of your own magic type.

Those sound like good changes. I think cursed legions would be fine at 40 or even 35; they don't have bonus hp. Also, the centaur is pretty bad compared to other cavalry of the time when looking at attack power/cost, but maybe that's intended.

Beornings not upgrading to Ents was part of giving the player an option of building cheaper units, but I believe that if you feel it's redundant, I can safely change it. After all, you've been a big fan of favoring cheaper, lower level units over more expensive high tech ones.

Heh, I like artillery and cheap units even in the unmodded game. That feature is much appreciated for acolytes and clerics, but having to wait until nature 8 to upgrade beornings is a bit much. If you REALLY want to keep building beornings, you don't have to research nature 5 for the ents (which takes a long time). I was crawling with beornings before I got there.

Curraghs going obsolete... Good idea, but I'm not sure how I would go about doing it. Is the unit really required BTW? Should naval expansion start with mages' first own naval vessel instead of the shared curragh? I don't play archipelagos so I'm a little biased, I guess the curragh is very useful when you start from a small island, but I've found myself starting the sea exploring with the Galley equivalents.

Curraghs get eaten by kraken before they get very far, but they're still useful for contacts if you're isolated, or general exploration if you're water elemental. I think the trick is to give them a unit to upgrade to, but don't give them the "upgrade unit" action. That way they disappear from the buildlist but can't upgrade.

One more thing about the traits: the Mystic trait doesn't make any of the shrines cheaper, and there's no government changes, so it's the weakest trait by a long shot. That was OK when only death mages had it (they had other features to make up for it), but it's wasted on the other mages. Cheap shrines are a must, the well of souls could stay at its current cost because it has lots of other features.

 

[The Last Conformist]

IIRC, there's a bug/feature allowing units without the "upgrade" order to upgrade regardless.

Personally, I can't see anything wrong in letting curraghs upgrade to the first racial transports.

 

[Antipaeter]

Just finished my first game, not counting the dozens of restarts cause I am not that good , and had one more problem to report. When I researched the last tech, I didn't have anything else to select to research and the game wouldn't let me out of the "Select next Tech to research" Screen. I had to quit out of the game restart and turn my economy to 0% research to keep playing.

All in all thought I had a pretty fun time with it and plan to play this some more, um alot more! I think you did a really good job with it!

Thanks again
Antipaeter

 

[Drift]

@nullspace

Thanks for the suggestions regarding unit stats. Nature is supposed to be a bit handicapped in cavalry so Centaur's relative weakness is intended. I'll look at its stats and price though.

I'll change the Beorning upgrade path and reconsider other such cases where a unit doesn't upgrade to the next in line, but skips one.

I'm not sure, but I believe TLC is correct - you can still upgrade units with the key command even though they don't have upgrade ability. I'm not sure though and can't test it right now. The simplest solution might after all be to upgrade curraghs to racial transports. I'll look into it later today (but won't make a patch, I plan to keep the current version for a while and collect more stuff for a bigger patch.)

You're absolutely right about the mystic trait (sage is for life mages, their names are a bit confusing). Will do. I'll also consider whether the trait could be beefed just a little bit more with something else. With fixed governments, religious is pretty weak.

@Antipaeter

I've had someone report the same bug before. I asked whether he had missed some race tech from earlier eras, but I don't think he replied to that. Did you have absolutely every tech researched? If yes, I'll have to find out what's causing this.

Nice to hear you like the mod.

 

[Antipaeter]

I checked and rechecked a saved game and I had all the race tech's from all the periods.

Feedback: I was a little dissapointed with the Dragon shrine. The Dragons were a tuff unit to try to use and keep alive. The only time I had two of them was after an extended period of peace. After that they didn't last to long in combat. I wouldn't increase the Attack or Defense, but maybe a point or two of movement.

Antipaeter

 

[BradRinWi]

maybe give a Slight science research. for advances... bonus.. as well as cheap shrines.... to Mystic...

I know its not really science but the age of alchemist .. and mystics in Real Earth spurred some scinece just by the laws of advocay *or devils advocacy...


or a slight bonus to imporvemtns and wonder building

again theres historical/fictional.. basis for it.. the most evil and horrid figures in Rl and in lit.. have also been part of or spurred on or exsisted because of some advanced centers or new centers of thought.// culture.. and or art.. and science..

either one of these (and i do mean small.. something that when combined with cheaper shrines (a nice but Not. all that great... idea)
would put it on par with the Sage cheap sci... Or the ..
druid ablitiy

or the cheap fast warlord ability..

 

[Drift]

Has anyone else experienced the problem of being stuck in tech screen after you've researched everything?

My only theory about it is that the last era should be the fourth one. Could it be this?

@Antipaeter

Thanks for confirming the tech screen thing.

Dragons too wimpy? I'll keep that in mind, but I would like to hear what others think of them as well. Could it simply be that they spawn too slowly? I also think that the difficulty level is a factor here. I'd imagine that the usefulness of the dragons is heightened at lower difficulty levels and lessened at high ones. Also, size of the map is a factor. I wouldn't want to give them more movement, as they are already able to strike really deep into enemy territory and guarding against even longer attacks like that isn't IMO fun.


@BradRinWi

Thanks for the ideas regarding the mystic trait. I'll start with making sure that all religious buildings are half priced and work from there. Haven't yet decided on the course.

 

[BradRinWi]

two quick things drift

Great mod


mystic glad you liked the ideas an other way to go is cheap shrines etc

and a bonus to units produced by a mystic.. perhaps .. a 5 shield price break??

or something Mystical like that??
or a random chance of a +1 Hp?? or creating a Elite unit...???
dont know if you can Do random chances like that just thoughts.. and ideas

also dragons I agree with antipaeter...

maybe dragons at 11 or 12 instead of 15??

by 15 maybe a super dragon yes its an embroydead concept from warhammer.. but worth considering

I do think dragson are a Bit unwieldy.. or maybe faster production..
I never managed more than 3 except once when all the Ais were attacking the same target and i got a breather...

last thing for right now

Nature mages i hate em my strongest opponent always seem to be the tree hugging forest dwellers...

Im not sure why but against chaos and other black.. and life mages No problem I always have the #1 civ but whenever my AI generates a nature mage or all 4 of em...
I get screwed...


is it druid and irragate without water... and the expansion that follows or is there some big imblance in the advance line...

 

[Dragonlord]

Hello again,
got a bit further on my DemiGod Chaos game. I agree that the Chaos Ettins aren't worth building as they are - I mostly built Chaos Knights instead, they're more useful at the same price.

Another small niggle (sorry!): Galens unique unit, the Paladin, has no sound effects at all - neither movement, fight or death sounds. Maybe a file name problem?

Re the Regicide discussion: I also loved the cool upgrades in the Sengoku Conquest, but don't especially like Regicide.
How about making the UUs upgradeable, giving them new abilities with each upgrade? Something like a combination of the Shogun upgrades and the Legionary I-III upgrades in Rise of Rome?
Hard to balance, I know, but it would be loads of fun to play!

 

[BradRinWi]

I agree about chaos ettins

C knights are a much better deal and cost the same..


I also like the upgradable UUs idea...
hmm new ablities with each upgrade
thats kinda cool...

 

[nullspace]

Yeah, I meant "mystic" when I said "sage" in my earlier post. I edited that so it says the right thing now. Some of the things people have been suggesting to buff mystic simply aren't possible in the editor. My idea is to make the obelisk and monolith half cost. That kind of makes sense, and it makes mystic a very good trait for those with few but large cities. That might be too strong, but I don't think it's any better than druid or energy channeling.

 

[Drift]

And finally, is there any reason behind the way the dates are numbered? You're just using the same years/turn as unmodded civ, but starting at 0 AD, right? The only gameplay effect this has is the 1000-year culture doubling, so if there's a different scale that makes sense, you should use it.

Sorry, I forgot to reply to this. Umm, what's 1000-year culture doubling? When I changed the system, I had no idea it would affect culture in any way. I'll fix it, but I need to understand what I'm doing.

On to the other feedback...

Like nullspace said, some of the suggestions for mystic trait are undoable. Monolith and Obelisk being half-cost is a very interesting proposal. I'll consider my stance and tell it here before making any changes. Thank you all for the ideas.

@BradRinWi

Yup, nature is the faction AI plays best. Probably due to easy expansion and fast population growth. It's hard to tone down without removing their main strenght.

@Dragonlord

I'll try to balance the Chaos Knight and Chaos Ettin (and other cases of cavalry vs. infantry). Thanks for pointing it out.

Paladin will get sounds for next patch. Thanks for reporting it.

Upgrading UU's. I agree, sounds fun. However, I need to conserve my time - already this beta development is taking considerable amount of it. I can't keep just adding new stuff - a line has to be drawn somewhere, especially when the new feature would mean lots of designing, testing and tweaking.


Thank you all for the feedback. Please, keep it coming.

 

[BradRinWi]

Re mystic..oops sorry forgot you cant do scripting with civ 3 I hope civ 4 allows it...
hmm maybe something more than monolith and oblisk..
maybe temples too..???
or crypts??


anyways regarding nature .. I understand it kinda sucks.. especially a sage druid mana channler combo like minerva..

she usually gives me headaches..

anyways.. regarding UUs upgradable..

I understand time constraints.. would you be open to Ready to use suggestions from the peanut gallery..
i mention it because this is supposed to be MoM ver 2.0
so would you be open to pre thought out progressions??


i suspect tween dragonlord and myself and others interested in this concept a balanced . logical progression of upgrades.. could come into being..
and even be tested..
just a thought since i really like the idea..

anyways great mod..

 

[Drift]

@BradRinWi

Temples are religious so they are already half-priced for mystics. Just like shrines and halls of the dead. (I'll have to verify that this really is the case, but that's how it's supposed to be). Crypts are death mage only and all of them are mystics.

As for the UU suggestion, I'm having again a little hard time following your line of thought. I believe what you are asking is whether I'd be open to thought out suggestions about stat progression for the upgradable UU's.

I'll have to say "no". There's no harm in submitting such a suggestion, but I'm still against adding the idea. I do think that the idea has loads of potential, but it will have to wait for some other mod to pick it up. Maybe I'll make MoM 3.0 one day and reconsider it, but right now, I'm just too busy and getting the balance right is a priority. Even though you guys would do most of the designing, it would have to be fitted into the current system, implemented, tested, tweaked...

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.

 

[BradRinWi]

no problem understood..

 

[mrtn]

I still haven't downloaded the beta (I'm busy playing one of my first Emperor games in my own mod), but regarding the "too good" Nature mages, what about giving them crappy UUs to balance it out? Give them late ones, then at least they won't expand early and get an early GA.
BTW, do wonders trigger GAs? I think they should...

 

[Drift]

@mrtn

Unfortunately 2 of the nature mages have early UU's. I'll consider my options, I don't want to touch the units much, I'd rather tweak the nature early expansion directly. I have a feelng it's entirely doable.

Wonders should trigger GAs. It has never happened to me, but it should be set correct.

 

[nullspace]

Temples are religious so they are already half-priced for mystics. Just like shrines and halls of the dead. (I'll have to verify that this really is the case, but that's how it's supposed to be).

Halls of the Dead and Temples are already cheap for mystics. That feature works fine, it's just not enough advantage for the trait. The shrines are full cost, and that seems like a bug to me.

You know, I think nature mage expansion is pretty much fine now. The full price granaries was enough to slow it down. Yeah, they look powerful, but their government is less efficient than other mages' and their units are worse. Life mages typically lead the tech race, and chaos mages can make surprising military gains even when small and their spies are a pain (death mages are still kind of bad in the AI's hands). Plus some other mages have the druid trait so it's not always nature mages who get big. Though I admit, Minerva does have three traits that the AI plays very very well.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Re: "thousand year doubling" - A thousand years after it has been built a cultural building will start producing twice as much culture a turn i.e. a temple built in 1300AD will produce 3cpt till 2300AD after which it will start producing 6cpt. The thousand year bit is hard coded and turn independent (if you have each turn last a thousand years culture would double immediately

I would suggest having a constant rate of year passage/ turn as in MoM unlike the epic game there doesn't feel to be an acceleration of development. The longer you have each turn being the easier a cultural victoy will be and the later you will have to switch to it. In the epic game cultural wins their is a pressure to build culture as fast as possible to gain advantage of this.

 

[Drift]

@nullspace

I like the idea of flagging obelisk and monolith religious (of course, they are already flagged as industrious...) Shrines not being religious is indeed a bug. I'll think more about the subject after Christmas.

Good to hear the nature mage expansion seems to be ok. I also agree about the Chaos and Life mages being where they are supposed to be.

Death mages seem to be either struggling or doing average. Don't know if something should be done. Maybe I should just accept that the AI can't handle them as well as other mages. The player can easily beat the game as a death mage so giving them more bonuses may just imbalance the system. I'm inclined to leave them as they are, but I'm naturally open to suggestions.

@Disenfrancised

Thanks for explaining that to me.

Now all I need is suggestions of what the turn lenght should be. I like the idea of the turn length staying the same throughout the game, but I can't figure it out on my own.


I'll be checking out the thread during Christmas, but won't probably reply much (well, maybe just a little ) Happy holidays to everyone!