Hmm, maybe posting a link to my long reply will work. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mfVHwF6eU-iBQuEjHTc3dWGZeOozn_sCN3BEFd1kub4/edit?usp=sharing

High Men, Day 87

We note with some amusement that Evena has miscalculated. The avengers were one move short of committing suicide.

TS

"Well, isn't it OK to try this "offline" in a test map to find out?"

I do that from time to time. I've got a test map that I'll throw things into and try them out. SUrprises still happen even post testing, sadly.

I just tested the Titans, and it looks like only one out of 8 or 9 tests used Round Attack. The rest tried to trade swings.

"Hmm. I thought you cannot even attack a flying unit if you don't have a ranged attack, and spells don't count. For example, I couldn't attack a stack of 4 Giant Eagles once even though I had Wind Walking (which doesn't help against flying units, as I have learned) and Ice Shards. So missile spells wouldn't have helped you."

It depends. I think he'd have gotten away with the attack if he'd had mana to cast an offensive spell, but that's because my valk would have charged forward to attack and died on his sword.

I have played the campaign with Warlock's ruleset. Or at least I am almost certain of it. When I get back home in about 16 days, where I have a computer with the mod installed, I will check and get back to you.

What sort of alterations are you considering for it? I'd be interested to hear your ideas since I am also planning a mod (which will use Warlock's engine with the changes to hero levelup for DEF, reduced city upgrade costs, but my own .pfs files unit stats and abilities, spell costs) my planned changelog, still under work, is here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q-yriE-XGnLvitbTDrjkK1fNkQmuwQfuP4C7rinc9gI/edit

Daemonvirus, another player here, also has a youtube channel with some aow1 vids. https://www.youtube.com/user/TheDaemonVirus/videos Although I don't know if either of us are really that good - when I upload the rest of my vids from this PBEM you'll be seeing some big mistakes. Including not attacking swiftly enough, not upgrading any of my cities at all , and not making peace with the Frostlings/Orcs (jyri/Mimo) to fight Bookwyrm's Highmen earlier. My massive assault on the Frostling army that came back to reclaim their city was a monumental screwup and it was caught on video :p I blame the Starcraft soundtrack for that one though, too epic.

I still have a tendency to die pathetically in PBEMs occasionally. Don't let caution prevent you forever - we're a little short of players and, speaking for myself at least, are hardly the most elite... besides, part of the fun is taking risks and failing. It can be pretty hard at first to get out the ''take stupid risks because you can reload'' mentality though. Eventually you should put all the thought into practice!

That's a very nice reference book you have there; I notice you take into account both the way a 5+ superiority of ATK relative to DEF increases minimum damage, and the way ''critical hits'' will always do max damage. But I have two quibbles. One is that the minimum damage increase from very high ATK cannot take the damage past the unit's actual DAM value, meaning that on the second sheet there cells b16-b21, c17-21, d18-21, e19-21, f20-21, g21 are incorrect and should be the same as the last cell above them. THe other is that I thought magic attacks like bolts and magic breath are not improved by marksmanship - was I wrong?

Also, I think you can post long posts once you have enough +rep on the forum; I will have to check I gave you +s on those posts.

If this is a copy/paste of your long reply, then it didn't post because you have mismatched quote tags. For example, right after the first quote and your response, you have an unpaired quote-close tag.

There is a 10k character limit for a single post, but your post was around 3k or so.

Hmm. I am definitely sure that I have read about being unable to play the vanilla maps. Anyway, probably a reason to take a look at it.

I am beginning on halving all the mana cost for spells via DevEditor and halving it again for all combat spells to make them more viable. So, for example, Vaporize and Solar Flare will only cost 1 mana now, Fireball will cost 5 mana (25% of the original cost), and Gold Rush will cost 20 mana to cast and only 5 mana to sustain.
I want this change because 1) I just want this game to feel more magical (yes, my personal preference with which you might disagree) 2) The AI likes to focus on Spellcasting only. For example, in the first map of the Keepers campaign, the Goblin AI has Spellcasting II and spends his mana to launch just one Fireball. What about launching 2? What about also being to sustain a lot of useful spells even when out of nodes?
I am not going to _rebalance_ magic at this stage, so the OP spells will still be OP, there will just be more opportunity to actually use them.

My next move will be rebalancing the Leaders. I want to give them some more interesting abilities to make them more distinct while probably also changing their numerical stats a bit. For example, Healing shall be given to the Highman.
Also, this sheet is not on my main reference document, but Orcs have too powerful leaders. If their abilities and stats had been bought from 0 to their starting levels, they would have cost 162 points. That's around 134 or so for Goblins and Lizards. And Leaders seem to be too important and too strong in this game.
I have read that Leaders always use a ranged attack or Dominate when they can if it's FC. If it proves to be true (needs testing), I want to give each leader one such ability so that their melee skills are just less important against actual players.
At this stage, I'll likely need to learn to use the Hex editor or other tools provided by AoW.HeavenGames.

After magic and Leaders are fixed, I am going to rebalance the units. Perhaps surprisingly to you, I am not going to e.g. nerf archers and elephants in terms of their stats. I am more on the side of 1) Buffing other options to increase variety (like making the Swordsmen actually viable) 2) Making some of the units just more expensive in terms of upkeep (the CS:GO approach). Yes, that will require HEX editing because the DevEd doesn't seem to support editing the upkeep cost. 3) Making factions more distinct — that was one of the main reasons for me to switch from HoMM III to HoMM IV and then to AoW. For example, I want to seize Magic Bolts from Dwarven and Orc Clerics. The Orc Shaman will get nice melee stats in return: he will no longer be a ranged unit, but rather an orc Swordsman with built-in Magic Strike, Healing and other usual Cleric’s skills. The Dwarves will have a Runesmith instead. He’ll have the Fire Musket ability. I am thinking about only giving them Healing starting with the Silver Medal, so they will actually be more like shooters than clerics. After all, the Fire Musket ability is just too weak for T3 troops to use as their main tool and just too powerful for T1. The Human Musketeer will instead be changed to something like D’Artagnan, the character from “The Three Musketeers”. He will still have the Fire Musket ability, but will also get nice melee stats, maybe even become a cavalryman, so he’ll be a bit like the Centaur.
You can notice that neither of those changes really buffs any of those races, at least not too much: the Humans already have a powerful T3 unit, they just get more variety, it’s the same with the Dwarves and the Orcs.
Those are just some examples.

I want to buff all the veteran troops to make them more valuable. As far as I can tell, there is no way to influence the numerical stats increases, but I can, for example, give +2 Def to the Halfling Swordsman, remove the Parry ability, and give it back on the Silver medal. I can give all the Frostlings Snow Concealment at Gold. I can give all the Swordsman the Magic Strike ability, or, in some cases, an elemental strike (Fire Strike for the Azracs, Cold Strike for Frostlings).

As you can see, that’s a lot of work to do. I am currently at the first stage. After I finish it (likely tomorrow), I am going to play the Keepers campaign with the first version of my mini-mod and set an extra challenge: I will not raise Defence of my Leader and other heroes through level-ups. I will also take Spheres that I usually don’t use: Earth and Life.

Again, my mod won’t be balanced by definition, as I won’t be fixing all of the existing problems at the same time, like the upgrade cost of the cities.

Will take a look at the videos by DaemonVirus!
BTW, your videos are actually nice. I’ve left some comments on them. :3 But again, don’t be afraid of them being long, there is just actually a lot to comment and to talk about. So if it takes 30 minutes, let it take 30 minutes. Just show us complete turns, it really helps.
If some are boring, you can edit them together with some other videos.

I will join someday. Hopefully. :) But I just need some practice now.
BTW, any idea how to set up the campaign AI to CPU Emperor?

Aye, because it was listed everywhere!

I will take a look into it and fix the formula, but I am not sure if this situation can actually happen in practice.
Basically, unit's (Att-5) should be greater than their damage for it to even be possible. For example, if a Leader has Dmg 3, they'd need Att 9. Oh, wow, it can happen under some rare circumstances. Yeah, the formulas are to be revised soon...

As far as I have read, they are. Worth testing, though. Again, just an armchair warrior speaking here.

Let’s see now...

Nah, I can! Bookwyrm was correct, I just forgot to delete that "/quote" thingie that I use to Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V when separating your posts into many parts. Thank you, Bookwyrm! Giving you +rep. BTW, is there any limit on the amount of upvotes I can give per day?

TS

Your mod ideas sound quite solid, although I think warlock was the only aow1 Hex edit-er; if you do make progress with that, keep me posted.

With devedit I believe you can open the scenario files and edit the AI settings that way, although that's laborious and risks spoilering things.

You're right, I'm getting confused with a different game. Time to give every Magic/X Bolts unit marksmanship on levelup :p

High Men, Day 88

Evena seems to be in a huge rush to try and restart using some Azracs. She doesn't have the time.

TS

Day 88, Dark Elves

We seem to have gone too far to the south - pointless raiding where our enemies aren't.

TS

High Men, 89

It would have been embarrassing to come this far, only for a Centaur, a Nymph, and a Faerie to end our empire. And yet that nearly happened. -.-

Also, I was very, very confused for a few minutes when one of my archers killed a scorpion and somehow took damage for it. After replaying the battle several times, and checking the stats on scorpions twice, I finally realized what had happened: my archer got a medal, so his max hp increased without his current hp increasing.

TS

TS

Centaurs in AoW1 look pretty good for T3 units, yes. This one was beating the crap out of my Gold Dragon in a 1-on-1 fight for a bit, and also managed to do some damage to my leader when he ran up to keep the stupid dragon from dying. I didn't expect both the Nymph AND the Faerie to both get a hit though; the 3 units managed to deal 8 damage to my leader before they were put down. That's a lot of hits from supposedly 10% chances over 8 swings.

High Men, Day 90

It has been a long three months. Evena went from a colossus looming over the world to a fugitive, but she has led our forces on a continent spanning tour for over three weeks now. She vanished into the Azrac desert, leaving us hopefully chasing her shadow, but then she made a mistake. She came back.

Now I stand where Evena once stood, but there is no great alliance to stand against me, only an old, old friend. It is sad work, but my duty is clear. The insurrectionists will not cease their agitations until there is only one viable leader in the land. We will build a mighty monument in his honor, but we still must put the Frostling leader in his grave.

TS