Master of Mana Xtended - Download and Changelog

[esvath]

- Why in the vengeance discipline there's only a few race slaying promotions ? It doesn't seen right to me that there are the elf slaying, and the orc slaying promotions; but there aren't, for example, dwarf slaying, goblin slaying or lizardman slaying promotions.

Good catch. I will make these promotions for Vengeance discipline.

Why do some civs start the game with their heroes, while other ones need to research a specific technology before being able to build them, and others can build their heroes right at turn 1 ?

My plan is to put stronger heroes on later techs. Os-Gabella should be one of the stronger heroes. Gilden is "just" another archer. These heroes might need balancing, though, both on their raw strength, their promotions/gears and their unique utility.

one thing that i'd love to see is to allow dwarves to move through mountains. Maybe to avoid balance issues, allow them to get the mountaineer promotion only after they get the guerrilla III promotion ?

IIRC, it is impossible to make promotion that allows units to climb mountain. I have to define this ability in UnitInfos. But giving late game Khazad unit this ability is fine, IMO. Maybe the Hornguard? Or the Myconids?

 

[Vital Brasil]

Good catch. I will make these promotions for Vengeance discipline.

Thanks !

My plan is to put stronger heroes on later techs. Os-Gabella should be one of the stronger heroes. Gilden is "just" another archer. These heroes might need balancing, though, both on their raw strength, their promotions/gears and their unique utility.

I think it's fair that stronger heroes would require later techs, but i personally don't like the idea of beginning with a hero, or being able to build them right in the first turn. I think every hero should require a specific tech (maybe a few exceptions, if based on lore or to give some flavour to a specific civ). Sure, Gilven Gilveric has no special ability, but that's why he should be unlocked by an early military tech, like archery

Having a hero by your side right at the beginning of the game helps enormously when clearing barbarian lairs, so i think it's a good thing to put some "effort" to get it.

IIRC, it is impossible to make promotion that allows units to climb mountain. I have to define this ability in UnitInfos. But giving late game Khazad unit this ability is fine, IMO. Maybe the Hornguard? Or the Myconids?

I am fine with this. Maybe give ths ability to dwarven shadow as well ?

Edit: Actually i would love to see dwarven rangers being able to move trough mountains. I don't know, but i don't feel right that a dwarf ranger can't climb mountains.

But to apply this change, i think it would be needed to create a new unit called dwarven ranger, unlocked by the ranger's guild.

Anyway, feel free to do whatever you feel is the best.

 

[Ogi123]

If we are taking about improvements and terrain why not loose restrictions somewhat?

-trade post buildable on grassland/fertile grass
-same with pasture

Main target here is to make better use of favoured improvement, currently as gigori for example I prefer plains start, because with grassland I cannot build trading posts.

On the other things, I presume that settling problem and barbarian cities problem is in DLL and therefore unsolvable?
Radical idea: maybe roll back to 4.1 version without CarnivalBizzare changes and build up on this version?

 

[esvath]

maybe roll back to 4.1 version without CarnivalBizzare changes and build up on this version?

There are lots of bug fixes and general stability improvement in 5.0 DLL so while we can roll back to 4.1, I am very reluctant to do so.

Main target here is to make better use of favoured improvement, currently as gigori for example I prefer plains start, because with grassland I cannot build trading posts.

The restriction on improvement is there to prevent same improvement spam and to force players to think carefully on where to settle the next city.
Usually civs spawn at game start in places with terrains allowing for their favourite improvement. If you found a civ's starting location is not optimal for its favourite improvement please inform me.

But to apply this change, i think it would be needed to create a new unit called dwarven ranger,

Not a big problem, as long as the unit graphic model is available, making a new unit is just copy-pasting xml and can be done in minutes. I'll look at Khazad's units and see which unit(s) will get mountain climbing.

 

[Jojo_Fr]

RE: Plantation in Hell terrain
Great idea! Plantation is buildable in Broken Lands (Hellish version of Grass). Gulagarm and Razorweed are harvested using Plantations, anyway.
I changed Sheaim's favoured improvement to Plantation and increasing their mana income from Plantations to 0.50, the same with Amurites.

- That's very good, but the problem it's the Sheaims will have some herbs but will have very few usage for it : Garden (it cost 1000 herb), does not really feat to them, or the butcheies buildings, which are completely useless as the hell land destroy all the food ressources the butcher could provide them.

RE: Healer's Circle and Evil civs
Healer's Circle is blocked from Evil is because I want to mirror Slavery is blocked from Good. Also, it's more about healing/making potions but about being healthy, managing sanitation and advancing medical sciences for all population. Not necessarily Good but at least Neutral. The Grigori and their College Medicos are the epitome of this guild.

I understand the mirror idea with the Slavery guild. But here are the problem :

- First, as I said before, Sheaims or any evil civ with some plantations (if you are in jungle/marsh for exemple) will not been able to exploit the Herb for anything than Garden and the two food buildings (Butchery + I don't remember the other name).

- Two, sometimes you begin in a jungle/marsh start. It's the essence of a game to adapt to the situation and change your strategy. If I begin in a mountaign region withone wine, I will always build a sage district. If I am with 3 food ressources, I will probably go to Noble, and take Slavery guild If I can. But if I begin in a jungle start and I am Evil, I cannot pick Herbalist guild, so I cannot boost my plantations and open access to some equipements.

- It's fun to have access to some herbs equipement. It's not a guild which you can exploit to grow or become strong. Contrary to the Slavery guild, who I understand should not be accessible to Good civilization. So it's not really a mirror situation, with Evil cannot take Herbalism and Good the Slavery.

- Even if Evil civs could take Herbalism, they wouldnot be able to adopt the special health civic they will unlock, as they are evil. For all these reasons I would find good to open access to Herbalism to any alignement.

RE: Jotnar
- Jotnar's House of Ancestor already gives Spirit Guide to Jotnar citizen spawning in the city. Code-wise, free xp should also be given to Jotnar citizen when they spawn.
- Jotnar units do not gain +2 str from tech because they can be upgraded when Jotnar researches a tech. Troll -> Elder Troll is stronger than Troll gets +2 str from tech.
- Jotnar cities will get +1 hammer per city cultural level to compensate their slow growth.
- I agree that Jotnar's unique improvement should be Pasture because their spawn area usually has lots of Plains.

Giving Pasturage to Jotnar is logical, but there will be a problem with their citizen growth, no ? Because if it's 5 per pop and not 3 per pop, pasture will not provide enough food. Pasture generaly give only 2 food (1 for plain, 1 only from pasture). I don't know exactely what will be the problem, but I think growing may be a real problem. Maybe giving them the underground source as immediate buildable improvement, or reducing the food they consume from 5 to 4 ?

 

[Psychodad]

Second to open Healers Guild for evil Civs.

 

[Linvega]

The restriction on improvement is there to prevent same improvement spam and to force players to think carefully on where to settle the next city.
Usually civs spawn at game start in places with terrains allowing for their favourite improvement. If you found a civ's starting location is not optimal for its favourite improvement please inform me.

I found that as the Lanun, I could build maybe 1-2 trading centers in all of my ~10 early cities. I wasn't near the desert, most terrain was grassland and the few plains were overwhelmingly on hills. Though the "true" favourite of Lanun is water tiles/pirate port anyway, so it's not like it's THAT bad, you need some way to gain ressources.

 

[gbursson]

[AUSTRIN] Theme: wanderers, independents.
- [AUSTRIN] Wanderer trait now gives Mobility 1 and Sentry 1 to recon units. It also increases the chance for recon units to get good result when exploring dungeons.
- [AUSTRIN] Austrin Settlement: -50% maintenance, +2 trade routes.
- [AUSTRIN] Starts with Exploration and Cartography.
- [AUSTRIN] Deidra now Trader/Expansive (no longer Adaptive).
- [AUSTRIN] Sorah and Ecks now Defender (temporary)/Exotic/Adaptive (lost Emergent).
- [AUSTRIN] Austrin cities with 8+ population will get +10 culture per turn.***

How about make Austrin cities small by default (like 6 pop cap) and make it possible to grow further having certain buildings/projects in the city? -50% maintenance AND +2 trade routes is very powerful.

- [DURAL] Lost Museum. College is renamed as Learning Hall and now Pagan Temple UB for Dural.

Smashing! .

- [JOTNAR] Giantkin trait makes citizen consume extra +2 food/population (total 5 food/population).
- [JOTNAR] Staedding makes cities have 3 radius, like Kuriotates' sprawling.

Great idea. This would roughly make statistical Jotnar city 40% smaller in population. Like the idea.

- [JOTNAR] Staedding gives +1 hammer per city level.

Did you mean per city population or per city culture level?

- [JOTNAR] Jotnar's units are upgradeable and most do not gain increase strength from tech to reflect their nature.

Makes sense. There are always Potions of Strength for that and one would not HAVE to focus on military strength techs.

- [JOTNAR] Mother Enningas's trait is Philosophical/Agricultural (instead of Philosophical/Financial).

[LUCHUIRP] Letigo is Miner/Emergent (instead Miner/Industrious).

IMHO Miner trait is weak and should not be one of the main traits of leader.
How about giving Letigo Industrious/Emergent?

[GAME] Great Prophet's Divine Intervention gives 1000 Faith (instead of 1500).
[GAME] Great Prophet's Pilgrimage gives 2000 Faith (instead of 2500).

I must ask that, as I do not usually play Religion-heavy civs, is it not too low?
Should not GP's sacrifice be more effective? (2000/3000)?

[GEAR] Tower Shield requires Defense discipline.

Should not that limitation change Tower Shield's boni to +20% against Archers and +10% defense bonus?

[PROMOTION] Fixed Bard promotion.
[PROMOTION] Fixed Gladiator promotion.

Fixed how? What was wrong with those? Now they give +50 (+5/level) culture every victory?

 

[esvath]

How about make Austrin cities small by default (like 6 pop cap) and make it possible to grow further having certain buildings/projects in the city? -50% maintenance AND +2 trade routes is very powerful.

If 8 pop cap and -50% maintenance and +2 trade routes is too powerful, I might reduce it to 6 pop cap.

Did you mean per city population or per city culture level?

Per city cultural level.

IMHO Miner trait is weak and should not be one of the main traits of leader.
How about giving Letigo Industrious/Emergent?

There is another Luchuirp leader with Industrious already. I try to avoid duplicate trait in a civ, if possible.
Maybe boost Miner trait to give 2 metal for each mine?

I must ask that, as I do not usually play Religion-heavy civs, is it not too low?
Should not GP's sacrifice be more effective? (2000/3000)?

Divine Intervention used to sacrifice GP at any times, in any city, for 1500 Faith. In early game, that can be used to rush buy Sacred Knowledge and casting miracles. Cutting that down to 1000 makes the early game benefit not too OP. It's on the same level with Great Bard's Tale of Legend, iirc.

Fixed how? What was wrong with those?

I made mistake, using BARD in Gladiator's code, so Bard gets double culture (from Bard's code and Gladiator's code) while Gladiator gets none.

 

[gbursson]

There is another Luchuirp leader with Industrious already. I try to avoid duplicate trait in a civ, if possible.
Maybe boost Miner trait to give 2 metal for each mine?

That might work. Still, Miner trait is pretty weak as buildings do not cost metal in general and Metal is plentiful anyway.
How about to have some twist with Letigo i make it pretty unique as far as Khazad go? I cannot remember off the bat what other leaders have as Traits but maybe get Letigo a bit of "Dark" Khazad flavour? Evil alignment, some "aggression" Trait(s)?

If 8 pop cap and -50% maintenance and +2 trade routes is too powerful, I might reduce it to 6 pop cap.

I did not realise those have 8 pop cap. 8+ might suggest they can grow more.
How about that:

• Make pop cap really small (4/5/6?).
• Retain settlement bonus at suggested -50% maint. and having +2 trade routes.
• Make pop cap higher by using buildings (unlocked pretty early/available straight away) - something akin to Dural old (?) mechanic?
• Have a hard pop cap at 10 - attainable with a bit of difficulty and effort (not too much though) - maybe only cities with Noble District could get 10?

I must admit Austrin have always had a certain appeal and I am looking forward to play those after changes are made.

 

[esvath]

Make pop cap higher by using buildings (unlocked pretty early/available straight away) - something akin to Dural old (?) mechanic?

I was thinking about allowing Austrin cities to grow past
Yes, that was Dural's old mechanic. I'll run some play test to see whether we need to increase/decrease pop cap from 8.

RE: Letigo and Miner
- Miner trait now requires no yield to build Mining Guild, Shaft Mine and Deep Mine.
- Letigo is back Industrious/Miner and Beeri is back Financial/Ingenuity.

 

[Ombatur]

RE: Plantation in Hell terrain
Great idea! Plantation is buildable in Broken Lands (Hellish version of Grass). Gulagarm and Razorweed are harvested using Plantations, anyway.
I changed Sheaim's favoured improvement to Plantation and increasing their mana income from Plantations to 0.50, the same with Amurites.

Is it possible to make pasture be buildable on the hellish version of plains? If you're stuck with a city in a region with plains and they get converted to hellterrain, you have a hard time to make your city grow to a reasonable size, even with sacrifice of the weak, since you can only build quarries and trading posts there.

RE: Healer's Circle and Evil civs
Healer's Circle is blocked from Evil is because I want to mirror Slavery is blocked from Good. Also, it's more about healing/making potions but about being healthy, managing sanitation and advancing medical sciences for all population. Not necessarily Good but at least Neutral. The Grigori and their College Medicos are the epitome of this guild.

In my mind it also doesn't make sense for evil civs to be able to adopts Healer Guild. Trying to be healthy is in my opinion not an evil but a good thing. Good civs cant adopt slavery, so it's just fair that evil civs cant adopt some guild aswell.
And if you're for example playing as Sheaim, there are uses for herbs. You need them to build/upgrade magical units and the garden is also useful for them, since you often need more happiness/healthiness when adopting ashen veil and/or slavery.
One could maybe think about adding some demonic potion thingy to the ashen veil religion, to give herbs some other use when playing with Ashen veil and using a plantation strategy.

 

[gbursson]

One could maybe think about adding some demonic potion thingy to the ashen veil religion, to give herbs some other use when playing with Ashen veil and using a plantation strategy.

Great idea! Something like (+x Unholy, removed after battle), (+1 Unholy, -1 Str, +X% attack strength), etc.

 

[BlueGenie]

Welcome back Esvath. Glad to see someone working on this again.

Quick question, if I may:
Has the exuberant City Maintenance after pop 10 been fixed?

Asking because in the last version there really was no reason to get any city past pop 10.
Sure, production was increased so units could be built faster in the much higher than 10 pop cities but having 10 cities building 10 units in 5 turns for a lot less cost than 1 city building 10 units in 10 turns... well, not much more to say about that.

If either City Maintenance increased more before pop 10 so the difference with going over 10 wasn't as big, or if the maintenance over pop 10 was reduced to make it more feasible to have higher pop.
The old mechanic was, I seem to remember, to have (Cities*1gold) in maintenance in each city, capped at 10 gold per city (so 20 cities had 10 gold maintenance each) until reaching pop 10, so no increase in costs for higher population until then.
Upon reaching pop 11 though the maintenance in that city soared, basically first doubling and then increasing at an ever increasing rate after that.
As it's based on memory I could be off by a bit, and I don't have the exact numbers, but I do remember that going anywhere past 10 in pop limited you tremendously.

Cheers

 

[Calavente]

Re Changelog:

I think research bonus from from varius buildings is too much. Lets do a little math:

Lets take a 20 pop city (not too difficult in midgame) with all buldings:
1(sage district)+2(salon)+3(public scool)+5(University) = 11 science per pop *20(city pop) = 220 science
+30% (library) + 30% (archive) + 50% (observatory) = 110% -> 462 science (682 with 100% Wonder) Just for Population!

If you go mainly for farms and sages and employ lets say 10 sages (30 science), 5 aditional great sages (25 science) and lets say 30 science from commece = 85 science -> 179 science (264 with Wonder)

That makes about 650 science (nearly 1000 with wonder) in midgame! Seems a little much, especially the base income from population. It could really be abused if unhappy population give the 11 science too.

I disagree that salon and public school and university is mid-game. in my usual games, those are late game.
so having 1 or 2 cities having that much science output late game is not so awful.
further, having food+health+happies enough to get 20 pop in a science city is really not at all midgame for most civs/game-play.
so I don't see any issue with those values (especially when one look at the cost of late-game military / arcane techs)

- Jotnar units do not gain +2 str from tech because they can be upgraded when Jotnar researches a tech. Troll -> Elder Troll is stronger than Troll gets +2 str from tech.

I did not notice that point.
I kinda disagree.
full +2 military techs give +30 str late game... so starting "no-yield" units can get, late game 37str ! much greater than an Elder Troll
and mid game, it's usual to have at least +10/+14 str.
IMO, the Jotnar game should be balanced around that.

will Elder trolls (mid-late game units), with their limited numbers, be competitive with mid-game units (base 11-13str) which have at least +10+14 str... and can be built in an un-limited way !...
(and that's not even speaking of the real late game where units get +20+30 str due to tech.)
and are earlier Giants units, before upgrade, competitive with 7/9/11 str units with +6-8 str ? (those are units that grow early game from 7-9str (very early) to 9-11str at turn 30, and at 11-13 at turn 100/150, and at 15-17str at turn 200 (early-of the mid game) Are giants un-helped by +2str techs, limited in number, competitive with that ?

further, Jotnar pop needing 5F/pop seems a bit much... I don't know how you'll be able to sustain that (unless you mean that you need to accumulate 5*Pop before being able to grow to next size ?

 

[Aletr]

In cur game, part of my units turned into Undead somewhere during a war against Elohim. One dervish, one nubalah and both of the converted monks. One of the monks afterwards turned into barbarian. Elohim had only Life mana and it was early game.

Idk any mechanics that do that, seems weird.

 

[esvath]

Has the exuberant City Maintenance after pop 10 been fixed?

Hi, thanks for the warm welcome!

The increased city maintenance after 10 pop is still there. It is in DLL so there is nothing I can do.

In cur game, part of my units turned into Undead somewhere during a war against Elohim. One dervish, one nubalah and both of the converted monks. One of the monks afterwards turned into barbarian. Elohim had only Life mana and it was early game.

Wow, this is new. Could you send me the save game? If I can open it, maybe I will know what was happening.

 

[Aletr]

Here is the save. Ive put the last 30 turns here, in case its helpful.

 

[Icezera]

Is it still possible for moroi to upgrade to vampires? I know bloodpets can upgrade to vampires, but I don't remember if moroi could as well. I think in vanilla they could but I don't remember about MoM

 

[Jojo_Fr]

Is it possible to make pasture be buildable on the hellish version of plains? If you're stuck with a city in a region with plains and they get converted to hellterrain, you have a hard time to make your city grow to a reasonable size, even with sacrifice of the weak, since you can only build quarries and trading posts there.


In my mind it also doesn't make sense for evil civs to be able to adopts Healer Guild. Trying to be healthy is in my opinion not an evil but a good thing. Good civs cant adopt slavery, so it's just fair that evil civs cant adopt some guild aswell.
And if you're for example playing as Sheaim, there are uses for herbs. You need them to build/upgrade magical units and the garden is also useful for them, since you often need more happiness/healthiness when adopting ashen veil and/or slavery.
One could maybe think about adding some demonic potion thingy to the ashen veil religion, to give herbs some other use when playing with Ashen veil and using a plantation strategy.

- I agree with you when you ask to make pasture buildable in hellish version of plains. The fact that hell destroy most of ressources or transform them into useless ressources is a suffisant effect (I prefer a +50 % in culture production than a -x% health regeneration for the ennemy). And hell destroy desert and plain food in burning sand which is a hard effectt.

- I disagree with what you say about Evils (and Sheaïms) and the Herbalist guild. Giving the possibilty to boost plantations, to make herbalist district, and more than all, to access to the herbs equipement, is a very important feature that any Evil who want to specialist into plantations should obtain. If Evasth don't want to allow the good features, he can forbid to Evil access to the Healer unit, to the Health building and to the Health & Happiness wonder. But at least Evil should still access to the potions.

I know it may look strange & non elegant to have access to a guilde without all his features, but I think it's important to be pragmatic : I don't see Evils civls been specialist of plantations (as the Sheaims are, with their +0.50 mana per plantation) if they cannot access to the main guild plantations & herbs (last argument : The Warlocks love to make alchimie, potions and sacrifice black cats to the Devil right ? ^^).

Has the exuberant City Maintenance after pop 10 been fixed?

Asking because in the last version there really was no reason to get any city past pop 10.

- I agree. City Maintenance should increase smothly, this hard cap has no reason to be. It's another kind of anti growing/"anti become strong" I hate.

- If people love to use the city maintenance to slowdown the expansion reward, it's possible to dramatiquely increase the city maintenance for any occupied city, for 20 turns. It would be more logical (x3 maintenance for 20 turns because the city need occupation troops and colonial organisation to be ruled).


- Calavente has right about the Jotnar strenght, I think. I am not sure to understand why Evasth you prefer to don't give the scaling to the Jotnar units (Aristarkh's cannon fodder brainless undead troops should not benefit from any military buff, but giants are intelligent beings). You have maybe reasons I don't see. If not, it will be good to ugrape Giants units into modernised units, but it's maybe not logical to transform a Wild Troll into a Troll Lord.

Suggestion about Jotnar : Giving them "Firing" walls, or "Gigantic" walls

- Firing walls : Jotnar are a people of giants. When invaders dare to come at their immense cities, they can just take rocks and throw them. When a city as a Stone Rempart building, the ennemies who are at their gate receive -10 % health point per round (with a limit of -30 %) coming from the giants to arms who non stop fire them rocks.

- Gigantic walls idea : Jotnar with a Stone rempart are not a simple fortificied city, it's an immense fortress. High walls and cliffs as thick as mountains. Any invader need to breach hardly the fortification of a giant city with a stone wall, if they want to hope at least enter in the city. Info : If it's techniquely possible, give to the Jotnar wall the Moat faculty : it forbit any attack of the city, unless you downed the fortifications of the city to a certain percentage (zero for exemple). The problem it's it would make Jotnar city untakable by A.I because A.I rarely use siege units or fireballs. As replacement, we may just double or triple the fortification level of any jotnar city with stone wall, to make it very hard to take the city without a heavy siege work ? What do you think of this idea ?