AoW+ v1.42 is here.

I recommend to delete all files from previous installations since v1.42 places some files in different locations. Also, AoW+ savegames now have the default extensions again but are stored in their own folder.

Other changes from v1.41:
- Readme file with list of all changes included.
- Fixed a bug that caused wrong relations when cancelling looting.
- Independent units demand less money to join.
- Made Elephants and Pony Riders more expensive to produce.
- Made Animate Ruins more expensive to cast.
- Made all other spells cheaper to cast.
- New mana income progressions for nodes and leaders/heroes.
- Restored original leader/hero XP progression and instead introduced XP-per-day progression.
- Fixed negative XP displayed on leader/hero level-ups.
- Slightly reduced city rebuild cost.
- Rebuilding cities now always takes 10 turns regardless of size.
- Increased cost to build and rebuild structures.
- Unit production is faster at L3/L4 cities and structures.

I didn't test this build too thoroughly; let me know if I also added any new bugs.

Nice! We're about to try this right now!

Same here! I just noticed the 'Xmas is Early This Year!' good news.

I'll play tonight and message tomorrow about my experience in the first 3 campaign missions. :)

Thank you!

Seems to work fine on Windows 10, but when we set up our usual XP laptops we get the following error: "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000017). Click OK to terminate the application." This same laptop runs 1.36, 1.41, DevEd etc just fine, but seemingly not 1.42?

Runs fine on my Windows 10 system....I don't have an XP install to test it on. :(

I like the changes:

1. mana income is good ?/?/10/15 node & 1-2-3-4-5 from ability (capturing many nodes is important, spell research is not fast)
2. buildings production is great. 1-2-3-4 turns
3. hero first few level have no skill points - ok.

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I m worry about:

1.42 city unit production time

.........tier of units
city - 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4

1----- 2 --------------
2----- 1 -- 2 ---------
3----- 1 -- 1 --2 ----
4----- 1 -- 1 --1 -- 2

higher tiers units are produce too fast. just play a game where my Ice Drakes completely dominate the game. With slower production time, it gives more time for lesser units to do something.

i know scarcity of size 4 town, cost of installation, cost of production, upkeep.

Need to play it more, but this is my first impression.

How did you get the money to build and maintain so many L4 units that the one turn reduction in production time was the deciding factor?

0xC0000017 seems to indicate a problem with the registry or possibly virtual memory. I don't have an XP machine to test on; can you check on your end for any memory or registry related oddities?

Did I understand correctly that this error occurs on several machines all running 32-bit Windows XP Service Pack 3 when starting the game directly from AoW+.exe?

I replay diplomacy with dragon.

I have 11 dragons

I lost 1 dragon (or more not sure, let say just 1).

Its day 38, theoretically if gold is not an issue i could have : 10 days 2x city upgrades + 1 day installation = 27/2 = 13 dragons.

Money was coming from cities that was loot by dragons, upkeep was doable.

====

if The dragons were produce just every 3rd turn, we can assume I would 8 dragons. Still too much IMO.

if the Dragons were produce every 4th turn, I would have 6. And that would be ok. Because I would not be able with only 6x dragon to overwhelm so many cities at once. And for sure I would lose more than 1 dragon. My opponent would have more time to build more units.

Bear in mind that my power is growing geometrically just with more gold income from looting. And power of my enemies is diminishing same way by my process of destroying his city.

------
hope that's helpful. That was play vs easiest AI (non cheating).

p.s.
dragons were pump from single size4 city. If I capture another "4" my dragon (or other ultimate unit) income could be double (i mean the game was already won).

thinking about it, I think that tier3 pump every turn + some from size3 city, could be even more devastating.

exaggerating , the "feeling" of the game become like playing Total Annihilation, where you have a line production of unit, a long queue line of units going to the rally point.

edit: i correct theoretical calculation its max13 dragons

I can absolutely revert the production time; this is an experiment based on the overall decreased gold income. I could also reduce gold from looting if it's a major source of income now.

However, Diplomacy with Dragons is a very unusual map because you get an external gold income of 50 per turn. After the 38 turns in your screenshot that adds up to 1900, the equivalent of 5 Ice Drakes including 10 turns of upkeep. Quite frankly I'm more concerned with gameplay on regular maps that don't have external income.

I like the 'looting' gold right now...makes for some hard choices. Quick gold now, but reduced production/capability long term.

In multiplayer, it'll also encourage players to try to loot your lvl4 (if they capture one) vs immediately razing it (but get nothing) = you might get a chance to reclaim it prior to it being burned down.

If the looting system you have now is reduced = games will just go back to the 'might as well raze it because it's not worth looting' standard protocol when capturing enemy cities.

The problem (as defined by Lagi) can be fixed by restoring the vanilla production times for larger cities.

I find myself hurting for lack of mana now....but as long as everyone else is in the same boat = it's fine. :P

Let give this version some time. Let it cool down.

And G you are right with external income on this map, that's why I was able to pull that off.

My feedback is showing some case: "what if gold is not a factor?".

Current scarcity of gold is good. But basing all game balance on money, make game "vulnerable" for exploits. Production time is just another factor that keep things reasonable. By high upkeep, your idea is that player should not be able to possess such amount high tier units.

Some map could be made with more income points, and that affect the balance [ usability of units ]. Or if you play vs heavy cheating Emperor AI that has more gold income, you will face flood of Tier4.

or if you cast multiple Gold Rush. Money start inflating.

Or if you lose bigger part of map control. By the time you come with units from other part of map. Enemy income already allow him to outproduce his unit loses. This make achieving economy advantage much more impactful, and reduce the chance of recovery.

I find it silly that its faster, to capture enemy city, and there produce fully army, than bring some forces from other places.

Almost all strategy game victory is based on economy. The better you gathering resources, & convert them into units, the better you perform. And I think its not that funny, if game is not Pharaoh like production manager, but about war & combat.

F.ex. Panzer General is fun because you care about your current unit. Your tactical decision to save own units, and reduce opponent forces, are more important that gaining some prestige point from capturing rural village.
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i thinking about the production time, everything but the "?", are perfect :

.........tier of units
city - 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4

1----- 2 --------------
2----- 1 -- 2 ---------
3----- 1 -- ? --? ----
4----- 1 -- ? --? -- ?

with - ? - you could rush with an answer
think we need to wait Southern feedback, how he see current timing

=======

Gold from looting is good. It make decision, is it worth to loot or just raze, because there is no time.
As Paradoxnrt said.

Plus if you are too greedy, enemy can come back with an rescue. It create good stories. Risk-Reward.

========
edit:

I done some study & play game with old exe, to eliminating not valid production time:

conclusion:

.........tier of units
city - 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4

1----- 2 --------------
2----- 1 -- 2 ---------
3----- 1 -- 2 -- 3 ----
4----- 1 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3

3 turns for tier 4:
if its produce in 2 turn; then in case if gold is no problem you are flooded with most powerful unit, that autowin the game.
AoW+ set quite harsh gold conditions. and city upgrade time is longer. So 4x turn stop being a good time. Vanilla 3 turns start making sens.

2 turn, for tier 3, for city size 4:
has to be faster than tier 4, otherwise just go for tier 4.
has to be slower than tier 2, otherwise no reason for tier 2.

3 turn, for tier 3, for city size 3:
should be slower than tier3, city size 4. Otherwise capitol lose special meaning as great spawn point.
tier 3 units are too good to be produce in 2 turn, in multiple points on map. But with 3 turns of production, there would be less saturation of flyers and super thugs.

[s]1 turn, for tier 2, for city size 3:
with 2 turns production, city size 3 is not valid, compare to same production from citysize2. Default would be to use size3 solely for tier3, cause tier2 units you could produce in size2 city as well.
tier 2 units have harsher gold upkeep in AoW+ (if we take into account new income).[/s]

EDIT:
I was thinking:
tier 2; city 3 - should be 2 turn like in vanilla. So go back with all timing changes.

this make city 4 - your last stronghold, that would allow you to pump unit faster. If city 3 has also this ability, then having advantage of map control make harder for weaker player to strike back.

+priest and cavalry are jus straight better units than infantry and archers.
+siege engines catapult & ballista are create every turn, it not a good unit for spam. Do you want to see in game mass produce infantry or ballistas?

----
being on losing position - and snowball effect for winner:
same situation is with spellcasting income. If you are cut out of nodes, you have no chance to do anything because spell casting didn't provide any significance of mana.

spell casting should progress better 1-2-3-4-5 => 1-5-10-15-20 (or 0-1-5-10-15 ?)

spam of first level caster hero will not affect the balance. But when you cornered just with your leader, you can still pull some tricks (transfer all from research into mana income).

still i think elemental mana node income is ok. If you winning you dont have too much, because you lucky to control 4spheres element. If you losing then enemy has less of advantage over you.

To clarify, 1.42 works on Windows 10, but am unable to launch game on Windows XP 32-bit SP3. I even reinstalled Windows XP on one of the laptops to ensure a completely clean install and the problem persists.

Am I the only one running XP here? lol

Still playing 1.42, taking notes! Having a lot of fun with it! Will post impressions in the next couple of days.

I don't think it's good for multiplayer (since you can't use your own Rule-Set), but this version isn't focused on multiplayer = meaningless! So I'm evaluating this based on the campaign!


*by 'can't use your own Rule-Set', I'm referring to the hard-coded spell costs (that ignore rule-set spell costs), and the mana nodes giving too little mana (from a multiplayer perspective).

I've started putting more time into campaign on 1.42. It's actually a challenge now, which makes it more entertaining. As for multiplayer, I can't speak for 1.42 - but we did manage to play some 3-player 1.41 LAN. Absolutely epic! There are definitely some improvements I really miss from 1.42, but still I think 1.41 is likely better suited to multiplayer.

We spent a good while talking about it and would like to offer to pay you upfront (e-transfer or paypal $50 CAD?) to make a few edits to 1.41, but only to parameters that have already been edited. We're hoping this might be (relatively) easy for you, and will still wait to see what the future holds for 1.50 as far as bigger changes go. We're all really hyped about your work and shared passion for the game, and wish we could implement these changes ourselves, but it's beyond us unfortunately.

Using "AoW.141_hotfix" as a base, this would be our vision:

Elemental Mana Income: 5-10-20-40
Spellcasting Mana Income: 5-10-15-25-40
Shoot Ballista: 8 ATK / 6 DAM
"- Restored original leader/hero XP progression and instead introduced XP-per-day progression." (from 1.42)
"- Fixed negative XP displayed on leader/hero level-ups." (from 1.42)
"- Fixed a bug that caused wrong relations when cancelling looting." (from 1.42)
"- Slightly reduced city rebuild cost." (from 1.42)
"- Rebuilding cities now always takes 10 turns regardless of size." (from 1.42)
Edit Version Number: 1.41.5-LAN (or similar, assuming letters can be used)


These would be the changes introduced in 1.42 that we would like to remove:

Spellcasting Casting Points: unchanged (10-20-30-40-50)
Spell Costs: unchanged (to be editable in DevEd, otherwise rulesets do not work)
Pony Rider/Elephant Cost: unchanged (to be editable in DevEd, otherwise rulesets do not work)
City unit production back to 1.41 (1 turn install, default production time)
Independent units join cost back to 1.41 (1.42 is now too cheap)

I hope you will consider our offer, it would really mean a lot to us. We love this game and your work has brought new life to it.


**
The following is our wish list that wasn't going to make it into our post, but in the unlikely scenario these are easy changes for you (relatively speaking)..... I can only imagine they are much more work though, so we've chosen not to ask as part of our offer:

Fire Strike: Higher probability of Burning being inflicted +2 ATK / Burning effect from 4 ATK/ 1 DAM / 4 TURNS to 6 ATK / 2DMG / 2 TURNS
Leadership: +1 ATK / +1 DEF / +1 RES ( + 4MP if possible)
Tunneling: Lower movement from 10 from 6
Base Vision for units and buildings: Reduce range by 1 hex
Ignition: Higher chance of igniting hexes