What about making Stoneskin reduce movement points by 4? I'm guessing fiddling with movement points is impractical?

What I love:

-I love the Node 5-10-25-50 progression (depending on how many spheres you have)! I mean it, I REALLY like this!
-I love what you've done with leaders/heroes.
-I love that you can no longer cast pathfinder on ships....ships being able to find the best path through ground/forests/mountains = idiocy!
-I love the unit changes for stats/abilities + silver/gold star enhancements
-I love the morale overhaul for troops + racial/terrain
-I love the asymetrical race relations + modified diplomacy.

What I am concerned about:

I played a map and found myself in constant poverty! Gold income reduction is pretty extreme....but I am guessing you are encouraging a style of play that revolves around serious gold shortages.

I was hoping to see games that fielded more lvl1-2-3 type units in bigger armies....but with this income reduction, that won't happen.

*Yup, I get that this is mostly an issue in The Campaign....since in multiplayer, we can alter maps to include external income.


As for the rest of what you've done, I can see the point. Generally in agreement or at times simply indifferent.

Thoughts concerning your 'proposed' version of HSS mod:

I guess you were trying to scare off requests for providing an HSS mod.....but I like your vision of the game! Those changes you listed would make for a much more strategic/realistic lore-based game! Your changes would make the game 'new' again.

Especially the lowered vision range....would make Leaders with vision and scouts far more useful! Concealment in forests for ground unit makes perfect sense!

.....maybe (if you are willing), complete your version of AoW+.....and then have your HSS version downloadable separately. I would be very much interested in playing it!

Yes, please. 5-10-15-20. 20 is still a freaking lot compare to 5 - its 4x. At least not 10x.

I always play with stock leader (probably its more advantageous to cut one to the need), and evert default leader has 4 spheres in magic.

Color me interested. I especially want to play with limited visibility, if its better or worse. Is LoS affecting AI as well (or comp see everything anyway)?

I was playing into the campaign a bit again, and I think two changes were overdone and make it feel like a slog:

-gold income halved
-city migration time doubled (compounded by needing a bigger garrison than basegame)

Hi And G...couple of things about Leaders/Heroes

1) I noticed that the first level up for both Leaders and Heroes = 10 skill points...afterwards, it goes back to 5 skill points per level. Is this intentional?

Don't get me wrong, I kind of like the first level up giving 10, instead of 5 skill points. I just wanted to make sure this was intentional.

2) Some stock heroes come with 12HP....this won't be an issue, right? I guess they'll just have -10Skill Points to spend.

3) Some stock heroes come with 41 movement......I guess that means these heroes will start with -25 skill point just from the extra movement.


QUESTION:

You mentioned 'smaller ranged vision for everything' in your vision of an HSS file.......that ISN'T something that can be altered in the HSS file. You can give the skill 'Vision', but you can't lower vision range.

I REALLY hope you implement lowered vision range in your version of AoW+....please tell me you are considering this! :)

I know vision ranges are definied in the engine, but I would only make any changes there if I could also give vision abilities to more units and update the ability description.

I ran some tests years ago and from what I remember vision range does seem to affect the AI. It definitely affects independents set to Guard Area or Patrol.

The first level-up giving 10 SP instead of 5 is semi-intentional; originally it was a bug that I couldn't pin down but now I actually prefer it this way. Still, if you ever figure out the exact conditions that cause this behaviour (because it definitely doesn't always happen) then please let me know.

yes, more gold pls

city--income
1 ........ 2
2 ........ 5
3 ........ 10
4 ........ 20

plus 1 per crop tile

I think its reasonable to ask for 2 gold per crop tile.

Finally had a chance to playtest! Played about a dozen scenarios, most to about early/mid-game only though. Lots of noticeable improvements, a couple flaws (at least for 1.36), here are some thoughts:

- I really like that the first level-up with a Leader/Hero grants 10 skill points. I did notice on one scenario, my Leader started with 35 skill points as a Level 5, and on another, started with 20 skill points as a Level 1. Could you please clarify the starting skill point equation?

- Gold income is too low (for 1.36). However, I do really like the increased difference in income between level 1 and level 4 cities, as well as the added significance of crops. I also consider the constraint of 'Produce Merchandise' having to remain as an added 25% of city income, as per in-game text. Seeing as that's severely limiting, and that the scaling of income between structures is actually really good, I think this is best addressed by changing the unit costs in a ruleset. I'm thinking lowering level 1/2 unit costs proportionately to current gold income, while likely keeping level 3/4 unit costs as they are, seems like the best solution. As it stands for 1.36, the amount of units I was able to build relative to all the structures I owned (in a timeframe allowed to me by the AI's own productions) seemed lower than before.

I think the issue is that farms would then generate 12 gold, mines and builders have to go up accordingly, and the city's base income is constrained to a value that will make 'Produce Merchandise' equal 25% of base income + total crop yield. There aren't many different equations that fit these parameters so I think it's safe to assume And G has considered them already. I think unit cost can be adjusted as our solution to gold income for multiplayer while AoW+ remains true to And G's own vision.

Please don't change this. The exponential growth is a great concept. Vanilla 1.36 meta led to diversifying for the sake of highest possible mana income, where this creates a meta where highest possible mana income will come from a 4+3 sphere selection. Maybe 5-15-35-50 (or 5-12-30-50), for the sake of exponential growth across the board, but I definitely wouldn't lower it. And I really think exponentially growing income is huge, please don't change to 5-10-15-20, or any static pattern. This is a really good change you've made.

- Rebuilding a level 1 city costs 250 gold / 10 turns, plus the gold/time from producing a Builder and bringing it to site - for a city that will produce 10 gold per turn, or more realistically 8 gold per turn if it's put to use. The map's strongest economy would have to think twice about that investment, let alone the struggling faction who had their city burned down. Is there any way to match rebuild time to how long it would take to migrate to your own race based on proximity? I also think it should be much, much cheaper considering you've already consumed an expensive Builder in doing so. I thought 100 gold yield for looting a level 1 city was fair, and perhaps a rebuild cost of 100 would be fitting. The cost and time of bringing a Builder over is already punishing. Also, 1000 gold / 25 turns for a level 4 city, with or without how OP Animate Ruins now becomes, is crushing. You'd almost have to switch Animate Ruins to Cosmos magic via ruleset to give all players another viable means of rebuilding.

- Migration is punishing but begrudgingly I admit rightfully so. I found it frustrating at first, but it's now become an interesting new element to me. Maybe a slight touch quicker (5-7?) as it does further enhance Animate Ruins currently. It also gives you more time to 'save' your city if it's taken over. Although currently, it's probably getting burned down anyways.


Haha, your list of why it's a bad idea sounds more like huge improvements! Not to mention, anything controversial could easily be edited by anyone, assuming you don't use a password (and even then, people aren't tied to your HSS file if they only want AoW+ as a base). Vision would make scouting important for the duration of the game, a very interesting premise. Concealment ... that's a good idea. As it stands, casting Concealment on an 8-stack is unviable, but having 7 concealable infantry would make casting Concealment on a large creature interesting... Cavalry idea makes for a historically accurate rock/paper/scissors-like dynamic for sword/archer/horse, and is now made viable with single projectile ranged attacks.


This is another good idea. I know we're working within the parameters of in-game text here..... but it'd be more of a half-truth than a lie if it were possible haha.

Hi And G! I think that most of us want the reduced vision done within the engine....it would be easy to implement a ruleset granting vision I/II/III/IV to the proper units afterwards.

*I could always be wrong, if there are players who don't want reduced vision range for all units/structures (as defined by And G earlier), then please speak up.

Since the main purpose of AoW+ is singleplayer, I support the idea of vision reduction, it would be highly atmospheric.

Vision may already by low enough on units in multiplayer, where people will deliberately lurk out of sight and move with greater aggression and purpose than the AI, but that's a secondary concern.
What sort of Ruleset changes would you make based on lore, out of curiosity?

Playing through campaign as 'Cult of Storms' on hard difficulty level.....the shortage of gold seriously hurts! The AI isn't really effected because it gets the $$$ infusions every turn.

I've been only winning the missions by accomplishing the scenario goals....beating the AI outright is out of the question.

Hmmm, maybe that is actually how it is supposed to be.....being so weak that the only path to victory is by accomplishing the mission objectives = is 100% lore based!

*for multiplayer, I think cash infusion modified maps will be necessary....but that really isn't a big deal! Especially considering how much more challenging/immersive the Campaign is! ...and it's only going to get better with the updates in the works!

Question:

I've noticed that for units, REGARDLESS of of its 'level class', it takes 10xp to get silver star, and 20xp to get gold star.

Is this intentional?

Never mind, simply deleting this comment - it was in reference to unit xp which I misunderstood.

Ah, what I said earlier about unit experience for different level type units + silver star needing 10xp and gold star needing 20xp....I think the edited .exe is working fine.

It's weird, it seems like you need 10xp for silver star and 20xp for gold star......BUT I think it actually works correctly. My lvl1 units killing another level 1 unit seem to get 5xp = it's no different than vanilla where where killing 2 lvl 1 units would get you a silver star. So, if your level 1 unit requires 10xp to advance...and each lvl1 units it kills gives it 5xp....there really is no difference!

Unit promotion is working as intended. The gist of it is that XP now depends on the level difference between the units, with a silver medal counting as an additional level for the unit making the kill, and units three or more levels below giving no XP at all. So to get promoted to silver, an L1 unit needs to kill an L2 unit or 2 L1 units; to then get promoted to gold it needs to kill another 2 L2 units or 5 L1 units, since it is now effectively considered an L2 unit itself. An L4 unit on the other hand needs to kill 10 L2 units to get a silver medal, and then won't get any more XP from L2 units.

Making the campaign more difficult was one of my aims; after all you can always switch to Normal or even Easy if it's too tough.

I don't have any concrete changes in mind actually, but I'm sure the issue will come up eventually.

In theory you start with 20 SP at L1 and then get 5 SP for each level. For some reason AoW gives 5 SP too little when starting above L1 and then gives those 5 SP back with the first level-up, or something like that.

I agree with Lagi that 50 is too much, though. I'm considering 1-5-10-15 as an alternative. This would mean that you'd need at least two spheres to get any real use out of an elemental node, and 4+3 would still be the optimal setup. Generic nodes would also still be relevant. I'm also considering a 1-5-10-15-20 progression (instead of 5-10-15-20-25) for leader/hero power generation.

Editing in-game texts is not an issue if I do make an HSS mod. However, making an ability affect MP that does not already affect MP is probably too complex to be worth the effort. Keep in mind that I'm working with the binaries, not the source code, and I literally didn't know the first thing about assembly before I started messing with the AoW engine files, so I'm learning as I go.

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If I do make an HSS mod to go along with AoW+ then I will first release one final update without an HSS mod, and after that there will be no further updates until the HSS is finished, which might take me a month or two. The final update will include a readme file, but no major changes such as asymmetrical relations. If you have any opinions to voice regarding last-minute minor tweaks to AoW+ in its current state then speak now or forever hold your peace.