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Age of Wonders seriesAoW+(390 posts)(390 posts)
(390 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 10, 2020
There will be an update within the next couple of days that addresses many of the discussed issues.

Relations normalisation which will have a ±10 point threshold, meaning that if default relations are Neutral (i.e. 60 points) and you raise them to over 70, they will decrease to 70 over time but no further, and accordingly if they drop below 50, they will only increase to 50 again. 50 is still Neutral and 70 is Polite, but 49 and 69 are Wary respectively Neutral. So you can permanently improve relations by one category without having to worry about normalisation, but only just. Keep in mind that neutral relations actually aren't so bad since L1 units to suppress rebellion are cheap to maintain.

I intend for AoW+ to be viable for multiplayer, but it's not my highest priority. The primary purpose of AoW+ is to breathe some fresh air into the old campaigns and scenarios according to the vision I have for the game; I will attempt to improve multiplayer viability as much as possible within those constraints, but I will not sacrifice my vision for it.

I will likely not release an HSS mod and I would prefer to leave balance fine-tuning to those who actually play lots of multiplayer games. I'm fairly certain that any HSS mod of mine would not be very popular anyway as it would be full of controversial changes.

One thing I will look into in the future is AI combat targetting priority. Unfortunately the routine containts no useful labels and so far I haven't been able to decipher the pointer arithmetics going on there. If anyone wants to help, I could use someone running some tests. This would involve using the developer editor to figure out stuff like whether unit level makes any difference for targetting or if it's all about attributes, and if so, which ones.

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Lagi_: improving relation by building walls was odd. On the other hand with current revolt ratio, I would have to think twice before I make my life harder to recapture in future.
Machiavelli sends his regards.
Post edited June 10, 2020 by And G
Posted June 10, 2020
Hurray!

Hope this threshold would be more than nice "promise". Happy to find out.

Im playing AoW+ daily, but from now on i include SSS patch.

I encounter Nordic Glow, what a troll bullshit unit. if this crap at least has some nice graphic, dragon or whatever. But no, cheap ass flying "energy" ball (artist are expensive I know) with high def, high res and immunity for everything.

Also single troll that kill whole army of my swordsmen (rebels recapture, i didnt produce them on my own), i feel "bad". They should be renamed "unwashed peasant with sticks" would be more accurate.

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Shipyards should grant income - I today completely ignore ports. I capture mines, b. guild, cities, but didn't think its worth movement points or lowering rebels suppression, to change the banner on the harbors. This looks so wrong on the main map.
[not sure if its hex edit, or ruleset part]

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unit installation,
I never install now the lower tier units. If its 1hex city I pump archers.
For sure cost of installation could be adjusted, but also IMO tier 3&4 installation should take 2 turns. Its not so harsh, because the game is more of a Sitzkireg now.
And it would be a decision, if im ready for BIG guys? or sticking with tier2 cavalry is enough.

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spellcasting skill cost

15 points is a lot of sacrifice ( 3 levels) and didnt change that much the magic part of the game.
I think this should be 10 (for level I and II for sure) & especially the spells need to be tweak (but its part of rules edit).

[not sure if I decipher you intensions correctly] Casting should be more limited by the amount of available mana. You could have even 10 wizards, but this would mean nothing if you dont have enough supply with crystals.

Maybe i play this game wrong but I have always some 100 of spare blue resource. And if i need more I limit the research.

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about general META.

I'm still doing migration, it just take longer (which is good, because it prevent fast expansion, which I like. And I need more than 1 doom-stack).
Looting city take time, and give very little gold.
Razing city is fast, but produce mini army of rebels == casualties Or Free army for enemy.
Trying to improve relations is pointless, why would I spend time and army on City upgrades, that give nothing. If I can just bring my own people by this time? If im migrating foreigners instead own race, to conquered cities, I basically shooting myself in the knee.

I think rebel army should be weaker (not sure how much). Then Razing city or mines would be safer. And you will give weaker free troops to your enemy.

Looting should grant WAAAY more gold. In fact it would be very interesting, if I could base my economy on looting cities, instead slowly taking territory control over structures - but this would required hundreds of gold per loot.

in term of current relation rules, migration, alliances, city upgrades could grant 2x bonus to relations with that one race.

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Im happy to do some tests for you.
BUT bear in mind that Im stupid, so you need to be very precise in your instruction.


p.s. as always I said some non-sense. Feel free to bash my opinions in the name of truth. I feel no remorse when i written above :D
Posted June 11, 2020
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Lagi_: Im playing AoW+ daily, but from now on i include SSS patch.

I encounter Nordic Glow, what a troll bullshit unit. if this crap at least has some nice graphic, dragon or whatever. But no, cheap ass flying "energy" ball (artist are expensive I know) with high def, high res and immunity for everything.
Thanks for the endorsement, but I am to blame here;

***Nordic Glow: DAM 4 to 3, DEF 5 to 7, HP 7 to 6, Lightning Prot, Fire Imm reduced to Prot***

Think I better tone down that DEF change. Since I plan on eventually bullying people into using the mod, I have been gradually removing excessive changes like 7 DEF on this unit.

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Lagi_: Also single troll that kill whole army of my swordsmen (rebels recapture, i didnt produce them on my own), i feel "bad". They should be renamed "unwashed peasant with sticks" would be more accurate.
Hmm, trolls are supposed to be really tough to be fair, like those big bruisers in the Lord of the Rings films.

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Lagi_: Maybe i play this game wrong but I have always some 100 of spare blue resource. And if i need more I limit the research.
Well, S&S mod does boost the low level summons quite a bit, so you could spam those.

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Lagi_: Looting city take time, and give very little gold.
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Lagi_: I think rebel army should be weaker (not sure how much). Then Razing city or mines would be safer. And you will give weaker free troops to your enemy.
Andy G mentioned he will vastly increase gold from looting, and will tone down the city forces.
Posted June 12, 2020
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And G:
I found another thing you might want to improve: the Crusade spell.
Currently, it summons one of the following independent groupings, which are set to Berserk status and disappear after two turns (they can be recruited for gold):
1 astra, OR
2 parties of 3-5 highmen swordsmen/archers, plus a third party of 3 t2s highmen or 2 t3 highmen units.

Maybe there is a parameter set to ''300 golds-worth of randomly selected highman troops'' here? The spell is very weak as things stand.

On the other hand the spell actually works OK, and could be 'fixed' with just a ruleset to make it cost way less mana.
Post edited June 12, 2020 by southern
Posted June 12, 2020
https://i.imgur.com/wfPmOk8.png]https://i.imgur.com/wfPmOk8.png]https://i.imgur.com/wfPmOk8.png
I need some explanation.[/url] edit: Im an idiot :D, i run out of gold !!!! ha ha ha

I play as Frostling (yes I know I lost my captiol, what a shame). Penguins - unit from my race, build in my cities - decided to leave me ? :- /

Every non native unit will always leave me, not the best but ok, I focus on my race for a change.There is no point of occupying foreign city. Start Migration ASAP, or Raze it to the ground.

Vanilla AoW1 is one big friendship circle with access to all units, to the point it doesnt matter which race I play. AoW+ you cant even trust your own race.

There are dungeons where you can release prisoners. Too bad that freed, is showing you finger just in the very next turn.
Post edited June 12, 2020 by Lagi_
Posted June 13, 2020
Well, even L1 units require some upkeep. In my test runs I never had issues with random desertions provided I had enough gold, and creature units have no hostile terrains anyway.

I am, however, quite amazed at how fitting that unit portrait is for the occasion.
Posted June 13, 2020
AoW+ v1.41 is here, featuring an improved campaign that allows you to realign with your starting organisation after choosing to aid the Lizards. Various campaign texts and scenarios have been revised accordingly. If you ever wanted to deliver the Lizards unto Julia or Meandor, now's your chance.

Download at AoW Heaven

Other changes from v1.40:
- Made wooden walls slightly stronger again
- Reduced city rebel strength somewhat
- Hero/leader level-ups are now more frequent
- Introduced relation normalisation threshold
- Install cost is now unit cost again
- Reduced stone walls build time from 5 to 4 turns
- Increased loot especially for large cities
- Reworked some ranged attacks
- Decreased overall mana income
- Increased mana for elemental nodes with many spheres
- Orcs no longer dislike underground terrain

I'm still looking for ways to make hostile terrains more interesting without screwing over the AI.
Posted June 13, 2020
Excellent. Its twice as better as previous patch.

Looting give nice amount of money.
Its sensible trying to be nice for some race. In current game I made 2x race stable (it was not optimal choice, but just for checking).
back of installation cost +
my small raiding forces now can finally raze some buildings, without being annihilate by rebels in next turn

single shoot for archers and ballistas is making this unit sensible. Combine it with SSS mod: Archers are trash, and stack of ballistas is not autowin. I love it, this is how it should be :)

i have no idea what you saying about decrease mana income, because I was summoning each turn new frog/eagle and I still has little less than 1000 mana. I even check and node grant 10 same as before.

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after today game I have no new complains :D

to perfection shipyard should grant some income, its such a shame that this capture points is ignored (by me, maybe its super OP in multi dunno).
Posted June 14, 2020
I have also been playing AoW+ (with my S&S mod, which I've never properly tested out before).

I have no real complaints, only differences of taste which were previously stated. I like the way medals give +1 RES at both silver and gold now.

I have been playing the scenarios out properly, running combats manually. I have been building my leader as a Fire mage with levels of Vision (since my mod makes damage spells very cheap tp cast), but you can probably also build for melee, with high ATK plus healing from life/water magic.

When playing the United Cities campaign scenario, when I went to take out the Frostlings, I ran into an absolute swarm of Dwarven and Goblin units running around. I think they must've somehow been created as rebels from the towns there, but the towns weren't razed, and I thought rebels would stay in their town. So that's strange. It also meant the Frostling AI never got anywhere. So while I really like the strong city rebels of AoW+, I don't know if you will approve of the AI struggling with them. I think the only reason the Elves were able to hold my goblin towns is because my ruleset gives Fairies Physical Protection and Charm (while removing Strike).
Post edited June 14, 2020 by southern
Posted June 14, 2020
I suppose the next thing to be considered is reviewing the ATK and DAM values of various spells, if the mood takes you?

Edit: oh, you already did. Honestly not sure how you can bear to be without a changelog.
Post edited June 14, 2020 by southern
Posted June 14, 2020
I do have a complete overview of all changes I made, which I will put into a more readable format to distribute with the next version. Mana income will hopefully also work properly by then.

Can you figure out what happened with the independent groups in your United Cities game by going through the savegames? I'm guessing it's deserters with lowered morale from snowy terrain. At this point I'm seriously considering removing all hostile terrains (except maybe wasteland) since the AI just ignores morale altogether.

By the way, in order to play the improved campaign you will need to start a new game, as the campaign setup seems to be stored in the savegame.

I like the shipyard income idea but unfortunately the shipyard is not an income-producing type of structure, so it would take a bit of work to implement that and I might not ever get the income information to display properly in the interface, so it's not very high on my priority list.
Posted June 17, 2020
Great mod ideas! Loading it tonight to play through the campaing. I did read through all the conversation, and my 2 cents.

Spellcasting Level up costs would be great as follows (if you are keeping the 'earn 5 skill points per level' standard):

Spellcasting Level 1 = 3 points
Spellcasting Level 2 = 6 points
Spellcasting Level 3 = 9 points
Spellcasting Level 4 = 12 points
Spellcasting Level 5 = 15 points

This would accurately represent how learning the basics = easy, but mastering = hard!
Posted June 17, 2020
A thought about the super long 'rebuild city' times + lucrative looting income....

Death Magic = Animate Ruins! ....Death Magic users won't have to wait to rebuild cities + can benefit greatly from looting + will get a large militia to go with the re-animated city.

.....if the resulting city was somehow hardcoded to be undead (regardless of player's start race), THAT would be a big help. Re-animated cities being undead would even fit the games lore quite well on several levels. The resulting militias would also be weaker than the other races lvl1-2 units (undead lvl1-2 units tend to be weaker, but have regeneration).
Post edited June 17, 2020 by Paradoxnrt
Posted June 17, 2020
Edited for clarity:

So right now, the Morale+Terrain modifiers are making stacks disband en mass....game breaking for the campaign.

A solution would be to keep the vanilla morale/terrain penalties....BUT add a 'high morale' BONUS instead. So units that have high morale would get a +2RES and +4MOV.

Or you could attach a specific bonus to units that are on their racial terrain. So for example, frostlings on snow/ice get the +2RES +4MOV. Each race would get a similar unit bonus when occupying 'home turf'....which makes sense according to lore. Each race should be able to maximize their efforts in their racial based terrain!

*basically, I'm suggesting that instead of focusing on terrain penalties (which cripple the AI), focus more on terrain bonuses!
Post edited June 17, 2020 by Paradoxnrt
Posted June 17, 2020
I like Paradoxnrt's input, especially the spellcasting level balance.

"resulting city was somehow hardcoded to be undead" <===

Potential for abuse: Reanimate into undead => Loot (lowers relations with undead without worrying about your own race relations) => rinse and repeat for gold

"Shipyard income"

How is gold cost coded? Can you make a negative gold upkeep? If so, a "fishing ship" could be a unit that could make you gold.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
Age of Wonders seriesAoW+(390 posts)(390 posts)
(390 posts)