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Gwyrgyn Blood posted:Perfect, thanks! That's a per profile setting I think, so the only way I can think of would be to make a second profile which has windowed... CommissarMega posted:Can you also reduce or eliminate the rate at which AIs raze cities too, please? Wish I could  AI improvements are finally being looked at though, so we can hope!
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May 22, 2014 16:41
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Carnalfex posted:edit2: Wait - ok, I had game speed turned to slow in that game's options, perhaps that was the issue? Are bandit camps etc not affected by changes to game speed, so they keep cranking out armies that don't have an upkeep cost until the whole map is covered in them? That might be what happened. Should be fixed with the latest update! Someone changed something in how the AI works while network which caused the waits.
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May 22, 2014 17:49
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Age of Wonders 1/2/SM up on the Humble Store this week, if you wanted to pick up any of those on the cheap. https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly...20and%20Triumph
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May 22, 2014 19:21
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Gerblyn posted:Should be fixed with the latest update! Someone changed something in how the AI works while network which caused the waits. You guys are the best. Has anyone mentioned the idea of having naval transports reduce movement? The latest changes with removing their cannons and lowering defense are nice, but ultimately meaningless if you never have to fear being attacked by water superiority units. Because of this there is still not much point to building water-only ships since they can't really react and intercept an incoming army on water transports before they land ashore. Having embarkation cut into movement points would fix both, I think. The patch said it reduced movement on BOTH transports and naval units, so that doesn't make naval units any more useful. It also said it reduced the cost of moving through water tiles by 25% (4 to 3) so that actually effectively *increases* water speed. Thoughts? Edit: Mariner might finally be something that matters (on maps with water) if you can avoid a movement penalty, too. Amphibious sneak attacks! (That other races can't do as well, unlike now) More edits: So I've been playing the new version in multiplayer now that it is fixed and the improvements to variety and usefulness for various tier 1-2 units and summons is glorious. It makes the early game MUCH more interesting and balanced. Hats off to you and your team Gerblyn! Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 19:44 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 00:24
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I'm still finding Humans to almost be a waste of time. Are there plans in the works to improve them again somehow?
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May 25, 2014 13:48
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Taear posted:I'm still finding Humans to almost be a waste of time. Are there plans in the works to improve them again somehow? Not as far as I know, though I saw another thread on our forums that was also complaining about them, so I guess we might do something. They got one of the best buffs in the last patch, and mariner is pretty useful in sea battles, but the racial units are still pretty boring. But then again, they don't have the worst units, they just don't have anything really special, which was kind of the idea. Humans being boring is kind of traditional in these games. Carnalfex posted:Edit: Mariner might finally be something that matters (on maps with water) if you can avoid a movement penalty, too. Amphibious sneak attacks! (That other races can't do as well, unlike now) Glad it's working out! As for the mariner stuff, I was testing the new water combat on Island maps and I actually quite enjoyed it. One thing I found was that the pirate bases and sunken cities tend to drop really good items, so there is some impetus to fight in the water, and warships/humans are much better at clearing the things than most ground based armies. You're right that slowing down transports specifically would be an interesting change, I'll bring it up tomorrow. Gerblyn fucked around with this message at 21:52 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 21:41
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I preordered this but got too sidetracked by other stuff to play more than the first campaign map. With all this talk of patches and changes going on is it a good time to play the game now or should I wait for more patches and balances if I plan on getting the best experience?
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May 26, 2014 12:40
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We're unlikely to be doing any more big patches for a little while, since we can't really patch and work on new stuff at the same time, so now is a good time to play it I guess? On the other, hand we'll be adding improvements for a while so the longer you wait the better it will be.
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May 26, 2014 12:45
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I'm playing the heck out of the game and am pleasantly stunned to see a studio willing to go to such a degree to support their product. At the same time the biggest obstacle to my enjoyment of the game is the passive AI. New content and balancing is always appreciated, but if the AI won't attack/allows themselves to be taken apart piecemeal it's just spit-shining a car that never leaves the garage.
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May 26, 2014 13:39
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Gerblyn posted:Not as far as I know, though I saw another thread on our forums that was also complaining about them, so I guess we might do something. They got one of the best buffs in the last patch, and mariner is pretty useful in sea battles, but the racial units are still pretty boring. But then again, they don't have the worst units, they just don't have anything really special, which was kind of the idea. Humans being boring is kind of traditional in these games. Mariner will always be a situational bonus, but I'd be hesitant to adjust Humans too much. The only thing worse then boring is boring and overpowered, and most of their units are actually pretty solid in terms of stats, they just lack the edge that specialization grants.
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May 26, 2014 15:24
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TheOmegaWalrus posted:I'm playing the heck out of the game and am pleasantly stunned to see a studio willing to go to such a degree to support their product. Multiplayer helps with this a *lot*, but yeah, you have a point. Plus multiplayer has it's own issues, like forced spectating of battles you can't take part in that also reveal to everyone what is in your army and it's general location. Still, I find multiplayer is the way to go despite these issues. The goal of a really good AI in a game like this is to simulate a human player, so skipping the middleman and playing against other humans makes for an ideal experience imho. Setting turn time limits stops one person going afk from bringing the game to a halt, and the ability to toggle fast-forward in battles helps a bit with multiplayer spectating now. As a bonus, idle animations also play super fast when you set that option on so draconians always look like they are grooving to dance tracks and goblins are twitchy. I am amused by little things. You can also make the AI more aggressive right now by turning up their difficulty so much that they can afford to keep massive armies at all their cities and still field offensive troops, but you are probably going to need an alliance to take a player like that on. The top level difficulty gives pretty nutty advantages across the board. It makes for interesting game options though, a sort of coop mode. The multiplayer spectating is less of an issue playing like this as well since you are all on the same side and often in the same battle with your own troops. madmac posted:Mariner will always be a situational bonus, but I'd be hesitant to adjust Humans too much. The only thing worse then boring is boring and overpowered, and most of their units are actually pretty solid in terms of stats, they just lack the edge that specialization grants. They did get throw net on some units in the last patch, which is pretty different. The thing with mariner is that other races get benefits in certain terrain too (underground vision, movement, forestry, etc) but also get bonuses (and drawbacks) to troops. Humans feel like they only get half a set of racial traits since they essentially only get a "terrain" racial ability. Still, it does affect tactical combat on watery maps by making fighting with transports more powerful. Tossing throw net onto some units helps them stand out a bit as well. You're right about the ability to play to a specialization, though. On paper they might be balanced for stats, but you can't easily pick up humans and combine them with certain spells/items to make a powerful lategame strategy, like using draconian fire resist to survive hellfire or goblins to happily roll around while the whole world turns to blight. You can always take over another race's city, though that is true of any race. Humans might be more ideal for that race-switch strategy since they get a passive production bonus to start perhaps, giving you an early advantage? Also their tier 3 having devout is weird, since they have no way of using it unless you are a theocrat. It can even potentially be a disadvantage against rogues since they can get devout slayer. Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 15:46 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 15:33
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Humans also favor the most common terrain type, so keeping them happy is pretty brainless on standard maps. Though it does rule out certain make the world suck for every other race strategies but I don't think those are terribly common anyway. The thing with Humans is that they're in a delicate place. They don't have many bonuses but they also don't have any penalties. Most of their units occupy "Not the worst of their type" status, but even a small buff could tip them over to best or second best at everything, which would just be obnoxious and dull. As is, they have good synergy with Theocrat and I find them a perfectly acceptable filler race in most cases. If I take over a plain or coastal human town with any race I'm much more likely to pump out a few Priests or Knights to support my forces then bother migrating them. They could maybe be made a bit more interesting but I'm not sure it's worth the risk of unbalancing them the other direction. (I do like the throw net bonus of some units. All the new race/class combo units are neat.) Devout is kind of a wasted perk on the Knight, though. You could always give them back Dragon Slayer instead...
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May 26, 2014 16:11
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madmac posted:Devout is kind of a wasted perk on the Knight, though. You could always give them back Dragon Slayer instead... Dragon Slayer is kind of a nice idea, Devout is only really useful for a select few creation spells or if you're fighting end game Theocrats (devout units are immune to the Shrine of Smiting's AoE). Otherwise, Devout is more a weakness, since it makes you vulnerable to units with holy/unholy champion.
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May 26, 2014 16:26
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Is there plans to have an expansion pack to the campaign? It kind of seemed like it ended when there was still more to go.
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May 27, 2014 00:36
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A small thing that's annoying is that move orders will always choose the shortest route even if it passes a faction who you don't have a open borders agreement with. The army will get stuck trying to enter the territory every turn until you change their move order. I wish it's ignore routes going through neutral domain like civ, it should be up to the player to notice their army is taking a longer way around. Sometimes I get fed up paying for open borders that I end up razing the offending city to the ground. I wonder if it counts as urban renewal if I put a road on top of their ruins. 
Delacroix fucked around with this message at 15:33 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 15:30
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Beta patch is live! Now everyone gets to throw nets and firebombs and crit on opportunity attacks to their heart's content!
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May 27, 2014 18:02
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Carnalfex posted:Beta patch is live! Now everyone gets to throw nets and firebombs and crit on opportunity attacks to their heart's content!  Gotta get back into this game and finish the campaign.
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May 27, 2014 20:44
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What's the best place to go to for multiplayer?
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May 27, 2014 22:54
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 Warlord, Archdruid and Theocrat i've already got in the OP. WYA posted:What's the best place to go to for multiplayer? No idea, we have a steam group if that helps. Edit: Honestly i think the most annoying disjunction thing for me where the AI is concerned is that they can hit cities they clearly dont know exist. Maybe im mistaken but im pretty sure you cant disjunct what you cant see, more to the point, a newly founded city can have its enchantment removed when the ai hasn't sent a scout their yet. Grumble, grumble. Stop Dispelling Mana Fuel Cells from my new cities you jerk! 
Thyrork fucked around with this message at 13:11 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 11:39
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Hey Gerblyn, do you guys have any further idea about the feasibility of Mac and Linux ports? Got at least one friend who would love to buy AoW3 if it were available for Mac.
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May 28, 2014 18:03
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The AI is really aggressive about dispelling. This is actually a good thing, it just needs to obey the same restrictions (sight) as the player. The dispel/disjunct mechanic should probably be looked at. I know people have mentioned it before, that dispel's cost is the same regardless of the cost of the spell it is eliminating. These two factors together mean that big showy FUN spells are pretty much off the table if an AI is in the game, since it can and will eliminate them at next to no cost, and do it constantly, even from across the map if it has never seen you. The game is called age of wonders! Age of you-can't-use-cool-spells doesn't have the same ring to it. Having players turn the world to ice or flood it or call volcanoes or curses or war marches is really very cool and fun. There should absolutely be ways to counter them, they just need to scale in cost so they are both viable early (important!) and not a complete lockdown no-fun zone later. Of course, having the AI obey sight would help too. If you could have a chance to shoot down scouts you could essentially protect yourself from disenchant spam to some degree.
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May 28, 2014 20:33
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I'm still not a big fan of the disenchant mechanics. Having city enchants/disjuncts tied to line of sight also feels really awkward to me. 'My cherubs can see your capital so haha I get to gently caress you'. It's not really feasible to screen out every low cost flying scout from every one of your cities, and microing them to dance in and out of los to cast city debuffs also feels really gamey and awkward. Not sure what the best solution is, just voicing my dislike for the current mechanics, both in terms of dispel cost=cast cost/time and the los rules. There were a lot of suggestions here a few pages ago, I'm sure there are more on the official forums also.
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May 28, 2014 21:27
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There's a reason AoW2 had the 'magic domain' mechanic. Just saying.
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May 28, 2014 21:34
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Carnalfex posted:The AI is really aggressive about dispelling. This is actually a good thing, it just needs to obey the same restrictions (sight) as the player. The dispel/disjunct mechanic should probably be looked at. I know people have mentioned it before, that dispel's cost is the same regardless of the cost of the spell it is eliminating. These two factors together mean that big showy FUN spells are pretty much off the table if an AI is in the game, since it can and will eliminate them at next to no cost, and do it constantly, even from across the map if it has never seen you. I'm not sure where you got this information from. The cost to disjunct a spell is always equal to the cost to cast the spell, for you or the AI. The AI doesn't follow different rules about what it can disjunct either, it can disjunct spells from any city on a hex it has explored, just like a human can. You don't need line of sight on a city to disjunct it (though people have asked for that to be changed). The reason the AI usually disjuncts globals is that everyone can see/disjunct them, spells on your own cities are usually safe, since the AI hasn't explored those hexes. I do agree something needs to be done, and after people here and on our forums argued for it, I'm pretty much in favor of some kind of chance of failure thing. Probably something like: if a spell costs 100 to cast, then spending 100 to disjunct it has a 50% chance of success, spending 200 has a 90% chance of success. I convinced one designer already, but I still need to convince the other one  Other ideas all revolve around ways that the caster can spend more mana on putting a spell up to increase the amount of mana needed to disjunct it somehow, but I personally don't feel like that would work. You'd put a spell up, and the AI would dispel it, you might spend more mana to force the AI to spend more mana, but nothing has really changed. The ideas also don't transer very well into tactical combat either. SilverMike posted:Hey Gerblyn, do you guys have any further idea about the feasibility of Mac and Linux ports? Got at least one friend who would love to buy AoW3 if it were available for Mac. We're looking into it at the moment. I can't really say anymore, I'm afraid... Edit: Thyrork posted:Edit: Honestly i think the most annoying disjunction thing for me where the AI is concerned is that they can hit cities they clearly dont know exist. Maybe im mistaken but im pretty sure you cant disjunct what you cant see, more to the point, a newly founded city can have its enchantment removed when the ai hasn't sent a scout their yet. Or maybe there's something broken with it? Could someone send me a save where the AI is disjuncting things from cities on hexes they've never scouted? Or post a link to one or something... Gerblyn fucked around with this message at 22:00 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 21:56
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I only get annoyed by enemy disjunctions when they disjunct a half dozen minor city buffs every turn. I can understand an opponent constantly disjuncting a happiness buff that is the only thing that is keeping my city from rioting, but eventually I just get tired of recasting those +20 production or +1 domain, etc buffs (if I even notice they is gone) and don't bother after a point. It's probably intended to be that way, where you only keep those minor buffs active if you really need the extra umph. I'm probably just irrational about min-maxing things. edit: the +10 gold example was a bad one, as that is also a happiness enchant. Derp. Chocobo fucked around with this message at 22:10 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 22:07
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While I don't personally have an issue with the AI disjuncting whatever it wants, one thing I have had a problem with is telling exactly what was disjuncted when city buffs are concerned. For example, if I'm running Mana Fuel Cells on multiple cities, and one of them gets disjuncted, the warning message doesn't state which city was effected, and I have to dig through my cities and try to figure out which one is missing the spell.
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May 28, 2014 22:11
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Ah, I always assumed disjunct didn't scale since the AI is quite capable of spamming the christ out of it, and I assumed it was able to target things it has never seen because I frequently get turn messages about enchants being wiped by players I have had zero diplomatic contact with. I also will have city buffs wiped on cities that are underground (with all entrances guarded) or across the map from the player that disjuncted. I thought human players needed current line of sight to disjunct, not only to have scout it once before. Is that not the case? Human players tend to spend their mana being proactive, in combat and on enchants and summons, so this sort of situation has never actually come up in pvp multiplayer. People tend to only cast offensive enchants or disenchants on a city they are about to attack. Ok, just tested it, I can't cast dread omen on a city unless I have current line of sight. I have to have a unit near enough to be able to actually see the city when I cast the spell. If I move the unit I can no longer target the city. This is, I think, the main point of annoyance for players: the ai doesn't seem to play by those sight rules for disjuncts. This, combined with the passive nature of the ai and autocalc combat it uses means it always has unused mana available to spend, and it can (and will) spend it countering your stuff constantly, even if it should not know you exist. So the disjunct mechanics work fine then, it's just the AI that needs work it sounds like? Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 22:41 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 22:39
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I really don't like the idea of a % chance at all, it's one of the big things I'm glad this game got away from as much as it did. I like the idea of being able to prevent another player from dispelling your enchants, but finding the right way to do it is hard. I liked the old idea someone brought up about 'turn immunity'. You could be able to spend extra mana to give your spells turns of immunity to dispel. That way, you can actually still make use of them, and there won't be a constant 'who has more mana' tug of war about them. Though it will probably still happen, just significantly less often and you can guarantee some turns worth of usage out of your enchants. So maybe something like, 20% base cost per turn. So if a spell cost 100 mana to cast, you could make it immune for 20/40/60/80/etc. Or if you don't like the idea of a linear gain on cost, make it triangular, say on 10% base cost: (n*(n+1)/2)*c*0.10, so 10/30/60/100/150/etc. Adjust any of those %s to taste. Maybe don't take that out of your casting pool, just your mana pool? I think the concept of spending more mana to just increase the cost of dispelling would be OKAY as well, but it largely just achieves the same end as right now, just much faster. IE, basically a tug of war over who has more mana. I don't think it encourages the world to eventually end up being filled more and more with enchants. Maybe making the extra to cast vs extra to dispel not linear? So like, if I spend 50 extra mana casting the spell, it would cost 100 extra to dispel. Or, sort of combine that with a 'fall off' effect. Maybe it costs 100 extra to dispel, but it loses 5% from that every turn. So from the turn I cast it, it would cost total to dispel: 200/195/190/185/etc. You could game these a bit by starting casting an enchant while it's already up, then dropping it and recasting it immediately, to avoid it ever being dispelled. So that's something you'd need to figure out if becomes a real issue or not. I'd have to think about it a bit more but there's probably a clever solution to that to be found ... And again, you could make these things more interesting by playing them in with classes or spheres. Maybe taking Mastery in a sphere makes spells of that sphere harder to dispel, or there could be a class trait that makes immunity/protection cheaper or easier to beat. Just some ideas anyway.
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May 28, 2014 23:00
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Carnalfex posted:Ah, I always assumed disjunct didn't scale since the AI is quite capable of spamming the christ out of it, and I assumed it was able to target things it has never seen because I frequently get turn messages about enchants being wiped by players I have had zero diplomatic contact with. I also will have city buffs wiped on cities that are underground (with all entrances guarded) or across the map from the player that disjuncted. I thought human players needed current line of sight to disjunct, not only to have scout it once before. Is that not the case? Human players tend to spend their mana being proactive, in combat and on enchants and summons, so this sort of situation has never actually come up in pvp multiplayer. People tend to only cast offensive enchants or disenchants on a city they are about to attack. Players (both human and AI) do not need line of sight to a city to disjunct a city enchantment. The only requirement is that you have explored the city (i.e. you know the city exists) at some point. My 2 cents as far as dispelling goes: We really need dispels to be more expensive than the spell they are dispelling. Right now, as both the spell and the dispel cost the same, dispel battles will always be won by whoever has more CP and mana. The AI (depending on difficulty) gets massive mana, gold and research bonuses. This means they will have a million CPs very early because they research their channeling skills faster and they get to Grand Palaces way faster than a human player. It's not uncommon to see an emperor AI leader have upwards of 100 CP by turn 40 or so, while a human player at that point has maybe 50 CP. It's just not possible to get any enchantment to stick in that situation unless you are lucky enough to have a city that the AI hasn't seen. And this is in a 1v1 situation, against multiple AIs I don't really bother researching from the enchantment section of the spell book unless they are extremely powerful. Ojetor fucked around with this message at 23:02 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 23:00
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So...disjunct uses different line of sight rules than all other spells? So just change disjunct, then?
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May 28, 2014 23:48
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Ojetor posted:We really need dispels to be more expensive than the spell they are dispelling. Right now, as both the spell and the dispel cost the same, dispel battles will always be won by whoever has more CP and mana. The AI (depending on difficulty) gets massive mana, gold and research bonuses. This means they will have a million CPs very early because they research their channeling skills faster and they get to Grand Palaces way faster than a human player. It's not uncommon to see an emperor AI leader have upwards of 100 CP by turn 40 or so, while a human player at that point has maybe 50 CP. It's just not possible to get any enchantment to stick in that situation unless you are lucky enough to have a city that the AI hasn't seen. And this is in a 1v1 situation, against multiple AIs I don't really bother researching from the enchantment section of the spell book unless they are extremely powerful. That is why I'm dubious of any changes which involve I pay X mana to cast so you need to pay Y more to dispel. The player wants to keep his spell up, and needing to pay X mana more won't typically prevent the AI from doing a disjunction. The "Pay X mana to guarantee Y turns dispel free" that Gwyrgyn Blood described might work as well though, but I'm not sure how well it would carry over to tactical combat. It's one thing to pay extra for 3 disjunct free turns of Empire Of The Sun, and quite another to pay for 3 turns of unstoppable Chaos Rift, or worse Unstable Mana Core. In TC, every turn matters, which is why I was leaning towards chance of failure stuff. We could obviously have a different system in TC than in the world map, though I'd personally rather avoid that. Carnalfex posted:So...disjunct uses different line of sight rules than all other spells? Yeah it does, originally city targeting spells didn't need LOS either, so it was changed while disjunct wasn't. The main reason I didn't want to use LOS rules for city targeting in magic was the difficulties of getting the AI to keep a spotter in view of a city for long enough to fire off the spell/disjunct. That requires a level of coordination that's almost impossible to really achieve. When casting offensive spells on cities, the AI explicitly ignores all spells that would take more than 2 turns to prepare, since otherwise it would not be able to cast it at all. In hindsight, it may not have been the best idea. It's something I plan to look into as I overhaul the disjunction rules in general. Also, I'm a little worried about you saying AI's you have no diplomatic contact with are dispelling your spells. The AI should only dispel things from players it's actually at war with. Edit: You have no idea vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Gerblyn fucked around with this message at 11:21 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 10:42
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Game development doesn't sound fun.
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May 29, 2014 10:44
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Gerblyn, had a crazy thought, hes the raw: My turn: I cast Mana Fuel Cells on one of my cities. Your turn: You disjunct it. The spell is put into a "flux" state, disabling its effect. My turn: I get a popup saying "This effect is being dispelled! Do you want to counter?" to which i can spend mana (Mana, not casting points) to sustain my effect while swatting off your Disjunct. The flux effect ends. Your turn: You disjunct Mana Fuel Cells again, disabling it once more. My turn: The cost for me to counter you again rises significantly, i decline stopping it as i dont have the mana stockpiled, but i have the spare casting points so i simply recast Mana Fuel Cells which replaces the fluxing one. The "Flux" state is to keep Disjunctions power as is. The mana cost will bite into any remaining issues involving stockpiled mana without costing casting points. The mana cost can be equal to the casting points of the original spell multiplied by whatever formulae you deem balanced. Plus, you might see a rise in banking mana so you can safeguard your world ending spell for longer! Could also invite another Avatar spell, one that makes the curve of rising mana cost lessened while its in effect. Some kind of "Flux Insulation" spell.
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May 29, 2014 11:26
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Thyrork posted:Gerblyn, had a crazy thought, hes the raw: Some sort of 'disjunction ward' like the one you get in aow2 might solve the city enchantment problem, if the ward itself becomes a city enchantment that protects the city. I think the disjunction thing works fine in tactical combat, although it might be nice to get a small bonus from big spells that get disjuncted before they go off - a disjuncted mana core explodes for some minor damage, a chaos rift or beast summon summons one last thing before it goes (although in the latter two cases you have already got some value out of it before the opponent even gets a turn.) I usually just try to bait out the enemies casting points with big hero spells, and save the massive ones for last (and hope).
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May 29, 2014 11:47
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Gerblyn posted:Also, I'm a little worried about you saying AI's you have no diplomatic contact with are dispelling your spells. The AI should only dispel things from players it's actually at war with. Now that I think about it, I think this happens mostly in games with set teams, so they are actually at war - they have just never seen the person.
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May 29, 2014 16:12
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Gerblyn posted:I do agree something needs to be done, and after people here and on our forums argued for it, I'm pretty much in favor of some kind of chance of failure thing. Probably something like: if a spell costs 100 to cast, then spending 100 to disjunct it has a 50% chance of success, spending 200 has a 90% chance of success. I convinced one designer already, but I still need to convince the other one Gwyrgyn Blood posted:I really don't like the idea of a % chance at all, it's one of the big things I'm glad this game got away from as much as it did. Maybe if disjunct attempts were cumulative? You get one disjunct attempt per spell per turn, chance of completion is based on how much you spent + the total mana that everyone has spent trying to disjunct that spell so far.
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May 29, 2014 16:36
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Gerblyn posted:The "Pay X mana to guarantee Y turns dispel free" that Gwyrgyn Blood described might work as well though, but I'm not sure how well it would carry over to tactical combat. It's one thing to pay extra for 3 disjunct free turns of Empire Of The Sun, and quite another to pay for 3 turns of unstoppable Chaos Rift, or worse Unstable Mana Core. In TC, every turn matters, which is why I was leaning towards chance of failure stuff. We could obviously have a different system in TC than in the world map, though I'd personally rather avoid that. Yeah I would probably just lean towards not allowing the immunity for combat spells, only for global spells. It's a bit of a janky mechanic in general, but I think the main benefit is that it allows everyone to use enchants to a degree, even if their opponent has grossly more mana than they do. If you're the underdog, you can still potentially cast a global a couple turns ahead of time and make use of it for a few battles. If you want to keep the current system of 'who has more mana', I would do something along the lines of what Thyrork suggested. The player getting disjuncted should have a chance to counter the disjunction before he loses the enchant. Like a mana power struggle or something. It achieves the same end but requires significantly less recasting and micro management. Splicer posted:Maybe if disjunct attempts were cumulative? You get one disjunct attempt per spell per turn, chance of completion is based on how much you spent + the total mana that everyone has spent trying to disjunct that spell so far. I would really prefer no chance-to-fail, but if they are going that route then they absolutely must do this in some form. I don't believe just allowing the player to spend extra to increase %chance is going to do anything other than make everyone always spend as much as possible to guarantee success of Disjunction. If something is worth disjuncting in the first place, it's probably something you want drat well sure is gone. Who is going to half-rear end a disjunction when they could instead spend that mana on other things? "Hrm, I could maybe, I dunno, have a 50/50 chance of a disjunction working. Or I could cast a summon or cast Dread Siege, both of which are guaranteed to work." It's the same reason debuff spells really suck, who wants to waste their time on stuff that might work when they could spend it on stuff that will work?
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May 29, 2014 19:38
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Gwyrgyn Blood posted:I would really prefer no chance-to-fail, but if they are going that route then they absolutely must do this in some form. What if disjunction was treated like any other attack spell? If you succeed, you disjunct. If you fail, a secondary effect happens. Target player loses some mana, or some casting points. Maybe a success causes the spell to be disjuncted immediately, a failure means the player being disjuncted is given a message on their next turn giving them the option to accept the disjunct or suffer a penalty. This would work with either a flat success chance or a sliding scale approach, especially if the failure penalty for the latter increased with the amount of mana dumped in. Another way to add a third factor could be to give disjunct an additional effect apart from disjuncting. If disjuncting a spell on an enemy city also damaged all the units within it/damaged productivity for a turn, that gives a lot more leeway for bumping the base cost of disjuncting while still having it be useful when applied tactically. Either of these approaches could be made really, really interesting by having disjunct's additional and/or fail effects be class- or race- or sphere-specific. Someone with fire mastery disjuncting a spell from an enemy city sets the city on fire for a turn (all production reduced 25%, any units inside damaged), while disjuncting on a friendly city would dump fire magics into the city forges (bumping production). Or a Rogue disjuncting an enemy city nicks some gold on the way out.
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May 29, 2014 22:11
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I just discovered something really fun. Explosive Death stacks - so if you have a dreadnought hero, summon 5 spy drones, then your flying bombs can explode TWICE. And then there is the shrine of the scarlet destroyer, but I haven't tried that yet.
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May 30, 2014 07:10
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Carnalfex posted:Now that I think about it, I think this happens mostly in games with set teams, so they are actually at war - they have just never seen the person. Ah, teams form an alliance, right? So, an AI can see what it's ally sees and disjunct things that it itself has never scouted. With regards to the counter the disjunction thing, the idea does have some merit, but I'd need to think through the fine details of how it would work in classic turns vs simultaneous turns. In sim turns, player 1 could respond to 2's disjunct attempt instantly, while in classic turns player 2 would disjunct and would need to wait until player 1's turn for a response. Annoyingly, you can't even rely on an instant response in sim turns, since player 2 could wait until player 1 hit end turn, fire off a disjunct, and then end turn themselves, forcing a new turn for everyone before player 1 could respond. There's also the question of what happens to a spell while the disjunction battle is happening. If the spell was temporarily disabled, then city defense spells would be useless, since you could start disjuncting, then attack the city before the defending player had time to counter. What about a system where a spell had a hit point level, and the cost/likelihood of success of disjunction was based on that hitpoint level. If the disjunction failed, then the spell would be damaged, making further attempts more likely to succeed. The caster could spend mana to add hitpoints to a spell to make it harder to disjunct/repair damage from other people's disjuncts. Lobsterpillar posted:I just discovered something really fun. Explosive Death stacks - so if you have a dreadnought hero, summon 5 spy drones, then your flying bombs can explode TWICE. And then there is the shrine of the scarlet destroyer, but I haven't tried that yet. Stop breaking my game! (That's awesome, stacking exploits are the best exploits )
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May 30, 2014 10:15
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