I'm back

[l'Ancien]

Hey ManTerA,

I'm back! But with one difference. I've downloaded the MPQ editor you have available here.

So, I'll confine my comments to ideas, questions, and genuine bug reports. I really do like contributing, and I hope my ideas and testing are helpful. However, I'll keep any spec/design/look-and-feel complaints I have to myself, unless you're curious or want me to e-mail you copies of any ideas based on your work.

There are some really cool additions since my last download. I'm looking forward to trying them out.

So far I have only one bug report (or possible design flaw): Rocca's Chalice and the Chalice of Life don't interact very well. It's very mathematically predictable, but what Rocca's Chalice gives, the Chalice of Life takes away, if the champions holding them are in the same army.

Do you think a Max function would help, to make sure that the Chalice of Life never provides less than 0 Ale? It might be cool if it would match the net amount provided by any other Ale supplies, but it should at least not soak it up, in my opinion. I think if you put in the negative version of the ale calculation linked by a MAX function, you'd get whichever answer is positive. I may be wrong, I haven't figured out the math functions for LOMSE MPQ very well. They're kind of backwards.

I really like what you've done with Air. (That's the only one I've tried recently.) The Alchemy spell is very interesting, and definitely makes up for any champions who lack good artifacts early in the game. Strength and Dexterity potions are good, and I've discovered that I tend to use Strength potions in place of healing potions anyway now in combat. I like the idea of Health and Strength being linked, even if you thought the link was tenuous. Then I save the Healing potions for outside of combat, and I can use them on creatures and soldier groups, when there's no rush.

I like the Feather Sword spell, and its new placement earlier in the spell book makes it useful much sooner.

My brother likes what you've done with the scrolls of characteristic adjustment (wisdom and resistence), specifically. He wondered if you have similar one-use permanent change artifacts for other characteristics, like dex or strength.

I like being able to see the details of the characters better also.

l'Ancien

[Boaster]

Long time no see man. Its been awhile. Been wondering where you were. Though, I thought I saw you looking around the forums the other day as a guest. ;D

You don't have to confine your comments to anything in particular, but lets not do round two of Chaos spells. I think I may have just put that one in the graveyard yesterday after going over it. Now a day later you show up, heheh.

Glad to see you're taking a look into the MPQs. There is another guy by the name of Fafnir whose been helpful in some of the latest editing. Dealing with the Buildings and how to get the upkeeps to display correctly... but what he doesn't know that yet again, he has flawed data. I only figured that flaw out today though. Units with two types of upkeeps would multiply with each other. If a Level 5 boat were to be viewed as a Mercenary in the buildings, the upkeeps of both resource types would be 25 and 25. So imagine if there were 3 resources for a boat's upkeep. 125 of all 3 per turn! Ofcourse, those are display only.

Interesting find about Rocca's Chalice and Chalice of Life. I'll investigate those. I have an idea to fix them already.

I really like what you've done with Air. (That's the only one I've tried recently.) The Alchemy spell is very interesting, and definitely makes up for any champions who lack good artifacts early in the game. Strength and Dexterity potions are good, and I've discovered that I tend to use Strength potions in place of healing potions anyway now in combat. I like the idea of Health and Strength being linked, even if you thought the link was tenuous. Then I save the Healing potions for outside of combat, and I can use them on creatures and soldier groups, when there's no rush.

Alchemy comes late into the spell book, but it is quite good. I might have to take the potion of mana out of the equation though.

I'll have Rocca's Chalice check at the begining of each turn how many units are in the Champion's army and grant an Ale upkeep bonus based on that.

My brother likes what you've done with the scrolls of characteristic adjustment (wisdom and resistence), specifically. He wondered if you have similar one-use permanent change artifacts for other characteristics, like dex or strength.

Yes. There are scrolls for Strength, Dexterity and Wisdom. Scrolls for Health, Mana, Movement, Health Recovery and Resistances. There is also a scroll of Power which will give bonuses to all stats, if you're lucky.

Scrolls of Health give +4 Max Health to Warriors and +2 Max Health to Thieves and Wizards.

Scroll of Mana gives +2 Max Mana to Wizards.

Scroll of Movement gives +2 Max Movement.

Scroll of Restoration gives +1 or +2 for all Health Recovery types (Inside/Outside/Moved).

The Scrolls of Resistance give their bonuses to a randomly determined faith. Lesser scrolls give +25, Greater give +50.

Lesser Scroll of Power gives +0 or +1 to Strength, Dexterity and Wisdom; +0 or +2 to Health and Movement; +0 or +1 or Mana;

Greater Scroll of Power affects the same stats with a few exceptions. Health, Mana (Wizard only) and Movement gained is +2. Strength, Dexterity and Wisdom gained is +1.

Both scrolls will restore health and mana instantly.

Varying scrolls of experience and a Scroll of Faith. Scroll of Faith will change the faith of the user, but not the Champion's class.


Hope to see you around more man. Glad to have you back.

[Boaster]

After reviewing the artifact combinations, Rocca's Chalice should be equipt after Chalice of Life. This will eliminate any complications.

[Fafnir]

Actually, I did know that would happen, as I tested it extensively myself before I told you about it. What I didn't know was that you had units with two types of upkeep, my bad.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

After reviewing the artifact combinations, Rocca's Chalice should be equipt after Chalice of Life. This will eliminate any complications.

I didn't think about equipping order.

What if you have two different champions carrying them, like the higest-level warrior and the mage lord? Whenever they join up, the mage with chalice of life will erase the -29 ale upkeep (29 ale produced) of the warrior.

Producing one ale for each unit in the army? On the average, that would work, maybe a little in favor of the player, if there are lots of archers or creatures that don't take ale. But it wouldn't be the same if you have mercenary soldiers or an ale-consuming legendary.

I think one of these formulas (in Excel format, because I don't know MPQ formulas well yet) would usually work exactly like your original formula, except without the downside or having to work out the equipping order.

=Max(AleConsumed,-AleConsumed) or =Max(-AleConsumed,0)

AleConsumed is supposed to represent the variable to get the Army's "Food" consumption. I assume it would normally be a negative value, but then if it's positive for any reason the result would either be to add it again, or to come back with zero additional change, depending on which formula you use.

I'll only mention spell issues once, in case they were an oversight, and then let it drop. Any spell I've already mentioned is already mentioned, and is dropped. If I have trouble putting it back for my own use I might ask for help in recreating it, but as long as you're just taking them out of the research books and combat AI, it's easy for me to restore them if I care enough.

Do you use the spell index to decide the research order in the spell-books?

[Boaster]

If by spell index you mean "gs/spells.gs" then yes.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

If by spell index you mean "gs/spells.gs" then yes.

Yep, that's the one I meant. It took me a little while to figure out the connection between the spell itself and the CombatAI instructions. So that's how to set the order too. I knew it couldn't be the spell detail files, because they're alphabetical.

[l'Ancien]

I haven't downloaded the latest change yet, but I saw that you said that marauders will now only be mercenaries. If you're going to do that, could you make them available at level 1 buildings? Or maybe only mercenary version is available at level 1, but at level 3 you can hire loyal marauders?

The reason for this is that I normally use mercenaries more at the beginning of the game when I don't have my stronghold yet.

By the way, I assume by marauders you mean only orcs and centaurs, not bears and panthers and other animals. (Mercenary animals just don't make much sense).

[Boaster]

lancien said:

I haven't downloaded the latest change yet, but I saw that you said that marauders will now only be mercenaries. If you're going to do that, could you make them available at level 1 buildings? Or maybe only mercenary version is available at level 1, but at level 3 you can hire loyal marauders?

The reason for this is that I normally use mercenaries more at the beginning of the game when I don't have my stronghold yet.

By the way, I assume by marauders you mean only orcs and centaurs, not bears and panthers and other animals. (Mercenary animals just don't make much sense).

Yes. By Marauders I mean the Military Marauders; not Bears, Lions, etc. Bears and Lions cannot be Mercs, because they are Creature types.

I was wanting to make Orcs and Centaurs Mercenary Only from the begining. I hadn't quite figured out how to do that at the begining, I had to forumulate a way to make them Mercenary only.

The reason I wanted them to be Mercenary only is that they can reach Level 6, which would entirely negate using the normal units, who max out at Level 5. Would you pick Orc Spearmen over Berserkers? I sure would. 20 natural attack, over 100 combined HP, 6 armor (?), but 25% melee resistance. Centaur Swordsman over Footmen? Definitely.

Think of Orcs and Centaurs as a bonus. At the very least they are available to use, but expensive to use over time.

As far as making them available with a Level 1 building, nah. It sort of sweetens the deal when you get a Level 3 Barracks or Guild.

[By the way], did you notice Water Elementals can be Summoned at level 1 Amazon Tower, rather than level 2?

Also, I left you a Personal Message on the forums earlier today.

[l'Ancien]

That works. I didn't know about reaching level 6. Basically, the way you figure it, when your capital is level 3 you can afford more expensive upkeep units, since they're better.

I usually have only used mercenaries at the beginning, for some extra muscle to take the temple, and then fired them as soon as I took it.

Yes, I saw that on the download description. I haven't played as Water recently, so I haven't actually tried it.