GS5: Soon to Release

[Boaster]

The GS5B is soon to become just GS5. I am still looking for more ideas to be thrown in before the Beta comes to a close. If you have any really really good ideas that you think the game needs, then you better give me some feedback pronto!

Over the course of the past 6 months I have created many many new spells, improved many of the old spells, implemented a system of balance between military units, improved the lesser creatures in several ways, and over all a greatly increased difficulty of the game just to name a few things.

If you're an older fan of Lords of Magic and you really dreamed of one thing you've wanted more than anything, now is the time to speak!

While my knowledge is limited, it may be good enough to somehow implement your requests.

I will be playing the game to test the difficulty of my map, improved encounters, and checking for bugs.

That is all for now. Hurry!

[tem]

here's two ideas, if possible;

would it be possible to train "lord" champions for an extra price at barracks/thieves guild/mage tower?
would it be possible for a code that gives followers? i am so sick of dealing with followers i want to make my brain explode.

[Boaster]

I've tried a cheat for followers, doesn't work.

Lords being trainable at a Barracks... that would be ludicris. Might as well throw out Champions at that rate.

[l'Ancien]

Wow. I have seen many improvements in the short time I've been looking at the game, but I feel like I've barely begun to test it, and I haven't had time to go through all the faiths yet. (Right now I'm checking out Death.)

If I find changes to recommend after you release the G5 non-beta, can those still be put in?

I really appreciate the time you put into this for free. It has completely reenergized the game for me. I enjoy playing it, and being able to recommend improvements or changes on something that has been stagnant for way too long. I also approve of the changes that make it more difficult, because one of the frustrations once I learned to play the game was that it became too easy.

Ideas for now:

Cross-Faith Mages:
Could level 10 or higher mages be allowed to cast spells of any faith, as long as the player has them researched?

I don't want it to come into affect any lower level than that, and maybe should be only for level 15 mages to restrict it even more, but I've always wished I could get a mage to cast a spell from a different faith, without having to use the scroll. They should still not be able to research foreign spells themselves, and they probably should not consume scrolls (use the scroll to instantly research the spell). So they still need to have some way to get those spells, like foreign mages and either a foreign mage tower or foreign scrolls.

Tower Prisoners:
Please, please make the tower prisoners random through all faiths except your own. Temple prisoners are your own faith, and get you started with a balanced force, but tower prisoners add a unique flavor to each game, letting you play with more than one faith without having to take foreign capitals (which quickly becomes repetitive). They also have a little more personality that way. Just getting a champion that I could train myself, especially if I can already train higher level champions than the tower prisoner, is really annoying. If I wanted another champion of my own faith, I would have trained him or her already.

Spell suggestions:
I haven't play tested these faiths yet, but have you added
Summon Demon for fire and Walk the Paths for Chaos? I want to write the spell-book story for those two, as well as for Pacify.

Infantry vs Riders:
On the question of rebalanced military, I was wondering why the dark halberdiers have such a low defense. The Dark elves are described as having more armor than the light elves, so it seems odd that their defense is so low.

I also think halberdiers should get a bonus to their attack and/or defense against mounted units only, if you can manage it. That's not as important as having them be a lot more sturdy. Death units do not heal fast, so they are really annoying when they get hurt too easily.

In general, with the significant exception of order knights and maybe heavy cavalry, shouldn't the infantry have a slightly higher defense than the riders, rather than significantly lower? I think (except for knights) infantry should have higher defense and hitpoints than riders, and riders should have higher attack and speed (naturally) than infantry. Knights should have higher attack, defense and speed. Depending on the Faith, the precise difference between riders and infantry may vary widely, from almost no difference (Chaos), to extremely different (Earth).

Non-fatal spells that should be fatal:
I have noticed that spells like Poison Cloud (Air) that used to be fatal are no longer fatal, and in fact actually provide protection to those it is cast on. Overland spells never have been fatal, and shouldn't be, but in-battle spells like asphyxiation, poison cloud, drowining, inferno, and decay (and any similar ones) really should have the potential to be fatal, or at most stop with one hitpoint left. I actually discovered that casting lightning on someone who already had poison cloud on them was useless, because the poison cloud would actually cause the damage from the lightning to HEAL BACK! That really needs to be fixed, because it removes some of the best multiple attack spells from play.

Golgoth's Gift:
I also think that Golgoth's Gift should affect the direct target without regard to level, but spread based on the caster's level compared to the secondary target's level. That makes me think twice about letting my Lord get near a necromancer (although it can be removed).

[Boaster]

lancien said:

Wow. I have seen many improvements in the short time I've been looking at the game, but I feel like I've barely begun to test it, and I haven't had time to go through all the faiths yet. (Right now I'm checking out Death.)

If I find changes to recommend after you release the G5 non-beta, can those still be put in?

I really appreciate the time you put into this for free. It has completely reenergized the game for me. I enjoy playing it, and being able to recommend improvements or changes on something that has been stagnant for way too long. I also approve of the changes that make it more difficult, because one of the frustrations once I learned to play the game was that it became too easy.

Ideas for now:

Cross-Faith Mages:
Could level 10 or higher mages be allowed to cast spells of any faith, as long as the player has them researched?

I don't want it to come into affect any lower level than that, and maybe should be only for level 15 mages to restrict it even more, but I've always wished I could get a mage to cast a spell from a different faith, without having to use the scroll. They should still not be able to research foreign spells themselves, and they probably should not consume scrolls (use the scroll to instantly research the spell). So they still need to have some way to get those spells, like foreign mages and either a foreign mage tower or foreign scrolls.

Tower Prisoners:
Please, please make the tower prisoners random through all faiths except your own. Temple prisoners are your own faith, and get you started with a balanced force, but tower prisoners add a unique flavor to each game, letting you play with more than one faith without having to take foreign capitals (which quickly becomes repetitive). They also have a little more personality that way. Just getting a champion that I could train myself, especially if I can already train higher level champions than the tower prisoner, is really annoying. If I wanted another champion of my own faith, I would have trained him or her already.

Spell suggestions:
I haven't play tested these faiths yet, but have you added
Summon Demon for fire and Walk the Paths for Chaos? I want to write the spell-book story for those two, as well as for Pacify.

Infantry vs Riders:
On the question of rebalanced military, I was wondering why the dark halberdiers have such a low defense. The Dark elves are described as having more armor than the light elves, so it seems odd that their defense is so low.

I also think halberdiers should get a bonus to their attack and/or defense against mounted units only, if you can manage it. That's not as important as having them be a lot more sturdy. Death units do not heal fast, so they are really annoying when they get hurt too easily.

In general, with the significant exception of order knights and maybe heavy cavalry, shouldn't the infantry have a slightly higher defense than the riders, rather than significantly lower? I think (except for knights) infantry should have higher defense and hitpoints than riders, and riders should have higher attack and speed (naturally) than infantry. Knights should have higher attack, defense and speed. Depending on the Faith, the precise difference between riders and infantry may vary widely, from almost no difference (Chaos), to extremely different (Earth).

Non-fatal spells that should be fatal:
I have noticed that spells like Poison Cloud (Air) that used to be fatal are no longer fatal, and in fact actually provide protection to those it is cast on. Overland spells never have been fatal, and shouldn't be, but in-battle spells like asphyxiation, poison cloud, drowining, inferno, and decay (and any similar ones) really should have the potential to be fatal, or at most stop with one hitpoint left. I actually discovered that casting lightning on someone who already had poison cloud on them was useless, because the poison cloud would actually cause the damage from the lightning to HEAL BACK! That really needs to be fixed, because it removes some of the best multiple attack spells from play.

Golgoth's Gift:
I also think that Golgoth's Gift should affect the direct target without regard to level, but spread based on the caster's level compared to the secondary target's level. That makes me think twice about letting my Lord get near a necromancer (although it can be removed).

Dual Faith mages are impossible. Such things are hard coded, and cannot be changed without the game being completely recoded.

Gaining prisoners from Tower of another faith, like if you're Earth and you free a Fire Mage, or an Air mage is of no use to you. Fire Mages need magic and mana. But if you all insist, I will consider.

But just know that Towers giving you a unit of your own faith can be good, especially since Champions costs plenty of money now. And also, I've come to realize that since the Great Temples are much harder, I've had to clear out a low level tower to get a Champion (luckily its been Warriors) just to take my Great Temple (with the aid of mercenaries). Try playing an Order Mage or Life Mage. If you can liberate your Level 10 temple on Hard mode before turn 40, then consider yourself good.

Infantry has low, unchanging armor values, as well as Missile units do. But most Infantry units have 33% melee resistance. Their low armor values make them susceptible to missile attacks, but since they do not have Missile resistances they take full damage and it takes a pretty big chunk out of their life. Cavalry have about 14/14 attack/armor average at level 5. They have high armor and attack, and even 33% missile resistance which makes them take less damage from missile attacks, but even take less damage versus physical sometimes. The average attack of a level 1 infantry is about 15. You may not like how it looks, but it works. Infantry beat Cavalry, Cavalry beat Missile, Missile beats Infantry. Not saying this is EXACTLY how it works, because sometimes Infantry can get close enough to maul missile units. Or Cavalry can keep attacking an Infantry unit knocking it off balance.

Halberdiers max out with 19 attack, and 4, 93 hp. The max for any infantry is 19/5 99 hp. Their HP may be lower than most Infantry (because Elves have less than best Constituition) they make up for it elsewhere. They also have 2 more movement points. Compare Halberdiers to Staffmen, and Halberdiers will be your choice for their damage output potential.

Walk the Paths for Chaos may be difficult to pull off, but I will try using code from Blink. Summoning a Demon does not seem necessary for Fire at this time.

I'll consider the aformentioned things, and do what I can.

[tem]

admin said:

I've tried a cheat for followers, doesn't work.

Lords being trainable at a Barracks... that would be ludicris. Might as well throw out Champions at that rate.

oh. k.


perhaps i should be a bit more specific on that. like, for a MUCH bigger price {25-75% more than regular champion equivalent}, you can get a "lord" unit {without it being a real lord that could take over if your original died}

[Boaster]

Only starting Lords are counted as "Leaders." However, it would be ludicris because Lords can reach level 15, which is just as powerful, or more powerful, than a legendary creature.

And if I could allow Lords to be trainable, they would cost 1000's of gold, crystals, and ale, and then 5-10 followers.

[tem]

ah. well, that's a bit ridiculous so heh. just an idea anyway.
if it was possible, perhaps a "greater champion" unit that was inbetween champion and lord {that looked and sounded like a lord though} that could go to level 13? again, just an idea.

[Boaster]

I've learned how to add new artifacts and spells to the game, but not units. Not an option at this point in time.

[tem]

i figured. although it does point out that it might EVENTUALLY be possible.

[Boaster]

It is not possible to do a GS5B with new units, because it would require more graphics and images to be placed into the pic.mpq and imp.mpq.

[tem]

i didn't mean for GS5B, exactly. i was kinda meaning GS in general. and when i say new units, i kinda mean more variations of ones already exiting. like greater champions, for example.

[Boaster]

In order to make "Greater" Champions I would have to create new CODE's for each unit. Such as, FIT = Fighter, FT2 = Fighter 2 (Lancelot with Order).

Agh, well I suppose it COULD be possible... but I am not ready to venture there yet.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

lancien said:

Wow. I have seen many improvements in the short time I've been looking at the game, but I feel like I've barely begun to test it, and I haven't had time to go through all the faiths yet. (Right now I'm checking out Death.)

If I find changes to recommend after you release the G5 non-beta, can those still be put in?

I really appreciate the time you put into this for free. It has completely reenergized the game for me. I enjoy playing it, and being able to recommend improvements or changes on something that has been stagnant for way too long. I also approve of the changes that make it more difficult, because one of the frustrations once I learned to play the game was that it became too easy.

Ideas for now:

Cross-Faith Mages:
Could level 10 or higher mages be allowed to cast spells of any faith, as long as the player has them researched?

I don't want it to come into affect any lower level than that, and maybe should be only for level 15 mages to restrict it even more, but I've always wished I could get a mage to cast a spell from a different faith, without having to use the scroll. They should still not be able to research foreign spells themselves, and they probably should not consume scrolls (use the scroll to instantly research the spell). So they still need to have some way to get those spells, like foreign mages and either a foreign mage tower or foreign scrolls.

Tower Prisoners:
Please, please make the tower prisoners random through all faiths except your own. Temple prisoners are your own faith, and get you started with a balanced force, but tower prisoners add a unique flavor to each game, letting you play with more than one faith without having to take foreign capitals (which quickly becomes repetitive). They also have a little more personality that way. Just getting a champion that I could train myself, especially if I can already train higher level champions than the tower prisoner, is really annoying. If I wanted another champion of my own faith, I would have trained him or her already.

Spell suggestions:
I haven't play tested these faiths yet, but have you added
Summon Demon for fire and Walk the Paths for Chaos? I want to write the spell-book story for those two, as well as for Pacify.

Infantry vs Riders:
On the question of rebalanced military, I was wondering why the dark halberdiers have such a low defense. The Dark elves are described as having more armor than the light elves, so it seems odd that their defense is so low.

I also think halberdiers should get a bonus to their attack and/or defense against mounted units only, if you can manage it. That's not as important as having them be a lot more sturdy. Death units do not heal fast, so they are really annoying when they get hurt too easily.

In general, with the significant exception of order knights and maybe heavy cavalry, shouldn't the infantry have a slightly higher defense than the riders, rather than significantly lower? I think (except for knights) infantry should have higher defense and hitpoints than riders, and riders should have higher attack and speed (naturally) than infantry. Knights should have higher attack, defense and speed. Depending on the Faith, the precise difference between riders and infantry may vary widely, from almost no difference (Chaos), to extremely different (Earth).

Non-fatal spells that should be fatal:
I have noticed that spells like Poison Cloud (Air) that used to be fatal are no longer fatal, and in fact actually provide protection to those it is cast on. Overland spells never have been fatal, and shouldn't be, but in-battle spells like asphyxiation, poison cloud, drowining, inferno, and decay (and any similar ones) really should have the potential to be fatal, or at most stop with one hitpoint left. I actually discovered that casting lightning on someone who already had poison cloud on them was useless, because the poison cloud would actually cause the damage from the lightning to HEAL BACK! That really needs to be fixed, because it removes some of the best multiple attack spells from play.

Golgoth's Gift:
I also think that Golgoth's Gift should affect the direct target without regard to level, but spread based on the caster's level compared to the secondary target's level. That makes me think twice about letting my Lord get near a necromancer (although it can be removed).

Dual Faith mages are impossible. Such things are hard coded, and cannot be changed without the game being completely recoded.

Gaining prisoners from Tower of another faith, like if you're Earth and you free a Fire Mage, or an Air mage is of no use to you. Fire Mages need magic and mana. But if you all insist, I will consider.

But just know that Towers giving you a unit of your own faith can be good, especially since Champions costs plenty of money now. And also, I've come to realize that since the Great Temples are much harder, I've had to clear out a low level tower to get a Champion (luckily its been Warriors) just to take my Great Temple (with the aid of mercenaries). Try playing an Order Mage or Life Mage. If you can liberate your Level 10 temple on Hard mode before turn 40, then consider yourself good.

Infantry has low, unchanging armor values, as well as Missile units do. But most Infantry units have 33% melee resistance. Their low armor values make them susceptible to missile attacks, but since they do not have Missile resistances they take full damage and it takes a pretty big chunk out of their life. Cavalry have about 14/14 attack/armor average at level 5. They have high armor and attack, and even 33% missile resistance which makes them take less damage from missile attacks, but even take less damage versus physical sometimes. The average attack of a level 1 infantry is about 15. You may not like how it looks, but it works. Infantry beat Cavalry, Cavalry beat Missile, Missile beats Infantry. Not saying this is EXACTLY how it works, because sometimes Infantry can get close enough to maul missile units. Or Cavalry can keep attacking an Infantry unit knocking it off balance.

Halberdiers max out with 19 attack, and 4, 93 hp. The max for any infantry is 19/5 99 hp. Their HP may be lower than most Infantry (because Elves have less than best Constituition) they make up for it elsewhere. They also have 2 more movement points. Compare Halberdiers to Staffmen, and Halberdiers will be your choice for their damage output potential.

Walk the Paths for Chaos may be difficult to pull off, but I will try using code from Blink. Summoning a Demon does not seem necessary for Fire at this time.

I'll consider the aformentioned things, and do what I can.

Too bad. I figured multi-faith mages would be hard (or even hard-coded), but that was my wish list, so I put it in.

I really want foreign tower prisoners.
Foreign warriors usually fight as well as anyone else, so there's no problem there.
Foreign thieves can be sent to spy on areas that your own thieves are at a disadvantage. For example, a water thief could be sent to spy on death territory, where air thieves are at a disadvantage.
Foreign mages can easily be given spare scrolls to use, and if you find a scroll for their faith, they can memorize it and learn a spell or two that way. They can also motivate you to capture a village you might not have otherwise chosen to take, in order to get them a place to research.

OK, that Infantry, Missile, Cavalry triangle is what I'm looking for. I couldn't see the resistences, and it sure seemed that my halberdiers were getting mauled much more than the riders. Also, I was used to using infantry as a strong center line, and having the cavalry rush from the side when the enemy engages the infantry. With the low armor for infantry and high armor for cavalry, I was tempted to reverse that pattern, and use the cavalry to take the brunt, and hit the flanks with the infantry.

On Walk the Paths, consider the Air Temple Annex and the spell Teleport Army. From inside the annex, you target a location, and your army appears there (with no movement) as long as it's within a certain radius. From anywhere, the spell teleport army locates any army in the air annex, and brings it to the caster (with no movement) it distinguishes between the faiths, transporting air units but not other units.

What I want to see is a spell targeting a location (no distance restrictions, but it must be visible or grayed, not black), that transports all units in the same army as the caster to that location. Chaos shaman takes movement penalty of 50% movement on next turn (like other movement bonus spells), but only mana for the spell and maybe a little movement used this turn. Other mages lose all mana remaining this turn, and maybe a mana penalty next turn, as well as all movement this turn and a movement penalty next turn. Other Chaos units take the same movement penalties as the shaman (some used now, half movement next turn) and a random damage amount between 1 and the max hitpoints (if they are already hurt, they could die), but maybe the damage is diminished by the caster's level. Non-mage, non-Chaos units lose all remaining movement this turn, 50% movement penalty next turn, and random damage between 1 and their maximum, with the risk of dying if already hurt (if the damage exceeds their remaining hitpoints).

Spell-Book story:
She opened a planar portal, many times larger than any I had ever seen. I glanced into the swirling vortex inside and shuddered. I had seen such portals before, even tossed a message or package into it, to be delivered instantly at incredible distances. But to put something living through it seemed insane. To go into it myself was unthinkable. She laughed, and I gathered my courage. She had "Walked the Path" many times, she said. The trip is beautiful, fantastic, she said. It must not be as bad as it looks from here. I stepped inside, after her. As bad as it looks? It was worse! I don't know where my vomit was delivered, but when I finally got out of the vortex tunnel I was in no shape to do anything but whimper. Now I know why everyone says the Shamans are crazy. The time distortion alone is enough to curdle anyone's brain. It was kind of beautiful though. Maybe I'll try it again someday. If I go crazy first.
l'Ancien. Wandering Barbarians: A Study of My Travels among the Primitive Peoples of Chaos. Page 532, Vol II

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

lancien said:

…

Non-fatal spells that should be fatal:
I have noticed that spells like Poison Cloud (Air) that used to be fatal are no longer fatal, and in fact actually provide protection to those it is cast on. Overland spells never have been fatal, and shouldn't be, but in-battle spells like asphyxiation, poison cloud, drowining, inferno, and decay (and any similar ones) really should have the potential to be fatal, or at most stop with one hitpoint left. I actually discovered that casting lightning on someone who already had poison cloud on them was useless, because the poison cloud would actually cause the damage from the lightning to HEAL BACK! That really needs to be fixed, because it removes some of the best multiple attack spells from play.

Golgoth's Gift:
I also think that Golgoth's Gift should affect the direct target without regard to level, but spread based on the caster's level compared to the secondary target's level. That makes me think twice about letting my Lord get near a necromancer (although it can be removed).

…

I'll consider the aformentioned things, and do what I can.

I understand that balancing the magic appropriately is difficult, but the poison cloud healing effect was really weird, and must be eliminated if Poison Cloud is going to be of any use. I also think that it is very anticlimactic to cast inferno to drive everyone's hitpoints to 1, and then firestorm to get that one last hitpoint. I would say that slowing down the Inferno damage rate (time between applying each hitpoint of damage) would be better if it's too powerful, to give people more reaction time. It should still cast as fast, and recover as fast, just maybe take longer to do all the damage.

[Boaster]

Inferno takes quite long to cast, and recovery time even more.

Poison Cloud will not reduce an enemy's life point below the value equal to their level. So if a unit is level 5, they will not go less than 5 HP.

I suppose this will have to change.

[tem]

also, question, this is just a "for curiousity" question;

is it possible to modify multiplayer for cheats enabled? since that's something that interests me for quite some time.

[Boaster]

Maybe, but theres enough loopholes in standard game player anyways.




Anyways, the Lich, even in Normal LOMSE, has the problem with its cost not going through. Nothing I can do with it.

[l'Ancien]

admin said:

Inferno takes quite long to cast, and recovery time even more.

Poison Cloud will not reduce an enemy's life point below the value equal to their level. So if a unit is level 5, they will not go less than 5 HP.

I suppose this will have to change.

I just discovered how long Inferno takes to cast (I annexed the fire territory in my game). That should be plenty of disadvantage, in addition to the self-damaging characteristic of the spell. I don't think it needs to stop at one. Other spells can stop at one if you like.

I just was on the receiving end of a poison cloud, when one of my assassins was attacked by a storm mage. He cast poison cloud on me, and I was instantly invincible. Every time anyone attacked me with a melee attack, I healed up to eight or ten hitpoints instantly. Every time he cast lightning on me, I healed instantly up to eight or ten hitpoionts. I was worried when the poison cloud ran out before I had cleared his army, but was reassured when he cast it on me again immediately. I easily killed the rest of the small army and then him, all without using the stealth button or doing anything but standing there and picking my targets. It's not so much that poison cloud doesn't reduce your life below the number of your level, it's that it heals you if your hitpoints go below that level for any reason.

Yes, it needs to be changed, unless you plan to name it Life Support or something.

In fact, that might be a cool spell to add: Life Support. If your life points go below your level, it heals you back up to the number of life points equal to your level. It would be a good Life spell, and would make those fragile elven archers hard to kill once they get to level 5 or so. It would also be very helpful for enchantresses, and would allow them to counter the use of Inferno, if Inferno is restored to be able to remove the last hitpoint.

In the meantime, yes, remove or reduce the minimum on Poison Cloud-it distorts the use of the spell completely, into a defensive spell.

Side note: Do you know what "Bane" means? It means "Killer". So Hero's Bane means "The Hero-Killer". It would be a good name for a Death spell that kills champions. It is not a good name for an Order spell that makes people heroic, unless it kills them too (but that's Heroic Demise, which means Death while Being a Hero). I do not recommend a death spell that kills champions. Leeches and Lost Soul do that very well.

I like your additions to Death magic. They are all very good, and very appropriate.

It seems though, that only one spell was added to Fire's arsenal, and that is Fireheal as a spell. Healing spells they were definitely short on and could use more of, but they don't seem to have been helped much otherwise (compared to multiple new spells for other faiths, and the best Fire Spell was diminished in effectiveness (Inferno). By the way, just for fun, should Inferno actually heal Fire Elementals? I think it would be interesting if Fire Attack Magic actually tended to heal Fire Elementals the amount of damage they usually deliver, even above their usual maximum. As a side note, it might be interesting if fire attack spells function as Possession on enemy fire elementals, in addition to healing them, maybe a small percentage of the time. (No change to demons or dragons, just Fire Elementals).

[Boaster]

There is a change coming up for the Inferno spell, in the next Beta update.

Inferno will do 1 damage every 3 seconds or so, up to the caster's level. The duration however, factors in the fire resistance rather than the damage factoring it. So with the Infernal spell, those who have Fire resistance may still take damage but won't take as much damage if they didn't have any at all.

Also, the duration forumula is like so:
[(2 x Caster Level) - (Target Level)] x Resistance modifier.

Also, the Inferno spell will ALWAYS do atleast 1 damage, and never reduce life below 1.

As far as Hero's Bane, I just thought it sounded nice. If there is a problem, I'll change it. It will be changed to Hero's Resolve.

Also, there are some artifact changes going to take place in the next update. You can find some, if any, on my website GS5 Artifact listing.

[edit]

I may just as well change the Inferno spell duration formula and have Inferno factor the resistance in the damage formula.