The .141 changes are not listed in the changelog...

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 09-12-2011 @ 07:26 AM).]

I asked a couple of guys - everyone sees 141 part of the change log, so it's something on your side. Maybe you're seeing the cached version or something?

You're right, hitting Refresh did the trick

Chain lightning is one target hit spell? Then what the name of this spell is for now? xD
I agree with Oleg that this would be a big turn-off.

Great job on the bugging fixing though !

Thanks a lot!

Chain lightning is one target hit spell? Then what the name of this spell is for now? xD

Not 1-target, but 1-hit. The point is War mage skill uses hit count from the spell resource settings, to avoid making Stoning and Great hail overpowered. But with Chain lightning things are different: targets are hit only once no matter what, and the hit count parameter is used to set max target count (5). So there was a need to "teach" War mage that CL is 1-hit spell, not 5-hit.

I would still like to see swimming/sailing be a movement point modifier. That is swimming I cost 8 mp, swimming II cost 6, etc.

I would still like to see swimming/sailing be a movement point modifier. That is swimming I cost 8 mp, swimming II cost 6, etc.

Don't worry, this still is gonna be done in the next version

I have some questions. Maybe they are outdated.

1. Is it possible to create desert concealment? Beach concealment? All the concealments we donīt have so far?
If so will it be needed to delete another ability for this abilities?
2. Is it possible to have an income- or fortress structure on water without the land below so that only waterwalking (or fliers of course) creatures can own it?
3. Is it possible to make a structure that forbids fliers moving on it like obstacles forbid ground units to move on it?
I donīt talk about void of course. A Hex that only allow ground units to walk on. Imagination of small cave tunnels for example.

No more of my mad ideas for now

I believe I already posted in this thread about Concealments.

Desert Concealment is already in the game, I think it should also give concealment on Beach (and perhaps Snow Concealment on Ice and Water Concealment on Shadow Water).

Swamp Concealment, Lava Concealment, Shadowland Concealment are good ideas if new abilities are possible. And perhaps Mountain Concealment and Structure Concealment...

Structure concealment... what a cool idea!!!!

Can we have that please?

Swamp Concealment, Lava Concealment, Shadowland Concealment are good ideas if new abilities are possible. And perhaps Mountain Concealment and Structure Concealment...

These all are totally possible, adding new abilities is the only obstacle left.

Is it possible to have an income- or fortress structure on water without the land below so that only waterwalking (or fliers of course) creatures can own it?

What a coincidence: I had encountered this question just yesterday =) The answer is: I don't know. There is a water-based underground gateway, so structures can theoretically stand on water. But I don't know how to achieve the same effect for any other structures.

Is it possible to make a structure that forbids fliers moving on it like obstacles forbid ground units to move on it?

That's a difficult one. It is possible to make some "obstacle types" (vegetation, obstacle, road, etc.) impassable for fliers. But it will have a global effect: for example, if you forbid fliers to fly over obstacles, it will affect ALL the obstacles. There's no way to make just one structure of this kind.

OK thanks you PawelS for helping me out. I am sorry for this silly question.
Maybe can be answered nevertheless because of the other concealment forms?

I forgot about Bridge Concealment, I remember someone put it in his sig long ago that Trolls should have it...

Also, I think Floaters shouldn't be able to fly over obstacles on the global map (like the walls that were added in v1.4), but Fliers should still be able to do it.

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 09-20-2011 @ 09:49 AM).]

Thank you HellBrick for the answer.
I have not seen it yesterday, maybe because we answer only few minutes after the other.
Maybe because of HG issues.
Interesting answers.

About concealment:
Would be great but as long as the ability border is the limiting fact is better to keep other abilities.
Maybe one day you manage to find the key?

About the flier obstacle:
If there is this global effect I think itīs better to accept that this is not possible then.

About the water structure:
This would be cool.
I beg for this since AoW I.
In AoW I you was able to place signs in water without the need of land below.

Hmm, signs on water... I think they should look like a buoy...

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 09-21-2011 @ 08:11 AM).]

@PawelS
You know AoW I very good and you know they are the wooden signs?

Yes, I know. I meant that if we can add them to AoWSM, it would be better to make them look different than the land signs.

Been away for a while and just discovered this new patch: very exciting stuff.

On the topic of signs, would it be possible to make it so that signs can either (a) be razed and/or (b) destroyed when building an outpost, or (c) ignored when building an outpost (so that the sign remains within the new outpost)? I was just playing Rise of Kings and there are tactically ideal spots to place outposts on the ends of narrow passes but unfortunately the signs prevent it.

It is odd that right now you can easily destroy trees (by building an outpost), you can raze large structures, but there is no way to destroy a piddly little sign?

If you can click on something placed on map, it's a structure, and you can't build outposts on top of the structures (which makes sense, right?). It's possible to turn sign from structure into a decoration, but I don't think it will be readable after that.

Thought there might be another, more complicated way. We'll look into it.

With all the disabled buildings in cities, I don't think Rise of Kings was meant to be played with building outposts enabled.

I admit I've only gotten through half of this thread but I was wondering about this issue:

Some of the things you mentioned are already possible. Mountain-dwelling giants are just units with Mountaineering, but w/o Walking. Similar thing about underground only units: Cave crawling but no Walking. (A giant snake that lives where?..)

Unfortunately this doesn't work, I remember I tried to make a unit with Forestry and no Walking, but it crashed the game in tactical combat. I don't remember if I tried it with Mountaineering and Cave Crawling, but I suppose they can cause the crash as well.

I'm not sure how tactical maps are selected. But to use forestry as an example . . .

Is it possible to have tactical maps for forest battles be filled with forest hexes so that forestry units without walking could work in TC? The hexes wouldn't have to look like forests, necessarily, but if they could all (or most) be considered forest for movement, then it would be possible to have cave-only, mountain-only, forest-only etc. units. (Something I've wanted since the first time I played with the editor.)

This would also make sense for non-forestry units because battles in forests should be more difficult for those units to move around.

On the whole, most of the patch changes look great.

Quoted from changelog:

Recursive ability masking crash has been fixed

This is VERY exciting. Weaknesses and protections can now cancel each other!

What about other masking issues? I remember being very excited about the potential for masking but found its uses often failed in practice. Unfortunately I don't remember the details, but I think maybe masking cursed, for example, didn't work (if, for example, you wanted death protection to mask cursed).

Quoted from changelog:

Unused research convertion rate is lowered to 30% (was 100%)

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but my concern is that it forces too much micromanagement. Before, I could slide the mana-research bar all the way to one side or the other and not worry about exact research costs because any extra research would be converted to mana when I finished researching a spell. But if I understand this change, now if I have the slider on 150 research per turn and I only use 50 of those points, 70 of the other 100 points are lost. This forces me to adjust the slider every turn to make sure I am spending EXACTLY what is needed for research. That's not fun.

Instead, would it be possible to just have unused FORCED research (from racial bonuses, libraries, etc.) be lost? Otherwise, I would rather go back to the 100% conversion - having to micromanage my research expenditure every turn would be an annoying hassle.

Quoted from changelog:

Haste can't drop movement cost lower than 3 MP/hex
To prevent abusing with Cave crawling, Snow wanderer II etc.

As I see it, the real culprit here is not Haste, it's cave crawling. Cave crawling shouldn't reduce MP below grass. Caves should have a higher movement cost for normal units (uneven rocky ground) and cave crawling should just eliminate the movement penalty of caves. Being able to move faster in a cave than on a flat grassy plain is bizarre. Cave crawling should cost 4 move points and then haste would work fine, reducing that cost to 3.

Personally I'd rather not see a cap to haste. But if there is going to be one, I'd prefer 2.

Quoted from changelog:

# First pioneer costs ↓100 gold (was 150)
Allows outpost to pay off in 5 days - exactly the time needed to grow outpost into a village.
# Pioneer gold cost is increased by 50 with every pioneer built by the player
Prevents massive outpost building, but still allows compensating a poor generated domain with an outpost or two

Is this price increase applied to any unit with the build outpost ability? So if my mod has a non-pioneer unit with build outpost does its cost increase by 50 with each purchase?

Is it possible to have tactical maps for forest battles be filled with forest hexes so that forestry units without walking could work in TC? The hexes wouldn't have to look like forests, necessarily, but if they could all (or most) be considered forest for movement, then it would be possible to have cave-only, mountain-only, forest-only etc. units.

That's a very interesting idea. I'm not sure how the TC maps are selected either, but that's something worth finding out, I think.

What about other masking issues? I remember being very excited about the potential for masking but found its uses often failed in practice. Unfortunately I don't remember the details, but I think maybe masking cursed, for example, didn't work (if, for example, you wanted death protection to mask cursed).

I remember masking Cursed by Undead ability back in the old times, because of the Damnation cursing undead units. And it had partial effect: no healing and death weakness effects were masked, while -2 Res penalty was not. Now when masking affects base stats, this last part has been taken care of.

And I can't say anything about other masking issues unless you tell me what they are =)

This forces me to adjust the slider every turn to make sure I am spending EXACTLY what is needed for research. That's not fun.

We are gonna allow to change research conversion rate in the next version. Also, it's not every turn, just the day you start learning something and the day before this something is learned.

Caves should have a higher movement cost for normal units (uneven rocky ground) and cave crawling should just eliminate the movement penalty of caves.

This idea has a very serious drawback: UG races balance. Now they are mostly slower than surface guys on the surface, but are faster in the caves. And the change that you're suggesting will ruin this nice symmetry.

I think Haste cap was introduced due to the Shadow world, and it was set to its default speed (2). We basically did the same thing, but with the fastest map level that is used in RMG games.

But anyway, you will be able to set the cap to whatever value you want =)

Is this price increase applied to any unit with the build outpost ability? So if my mod has a non-pioneer unit with build outpost does its cost increase by 50 with each purchase?

Yes.

Enabling recursive masking seems like a great feature, but how is it accomplished? Is it accomplished by having masked abilities continue to mask other abilities?

If so, that would eliminate chain-masking. For example, I have a mod in which all units with Archery also have Flame Arrows (identical to Archery but with fire damage added [and flame arrow animation]). Normally, Archery masks Flame Arrows. But Fire Halo, Ignition, and Burning mask Archery. This has the desirable effect of granting Flame Arrows to any archer who is on fire. However, if masked abilities continued to mask, this sort of chain-masking would not be possible.

So is that how masking works in this patch? Do masked abilities continue to mask?

Yes, masked abilities continue to mask - it's the only way to provide mutual elimination of the opposite abilities.

That's a very interesting scenario you've described. There definitely should be a way to do such things, and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to provide one.

Do you have more of such intricate things? =)

Merchant and Survivor

Just calculated in an avg game with 4 cities(cap included) and 5 mines + 16 lvl3 units survivor is over 200% better than merchant in mpe

Gold gain merchant: +42g to the total income
Gold gain survivor: +96g to the total income

The only exception to have merchant better than survior with current mod settings, is, if you would play merchant + summoner and only with summons, you can use decadence for free too. However its an unrealistic scenario.

Currently survivor costs 2 skill points and merchant 3 skill points, to make balance more weird.

My question is, when do you plan to set up the % of merchant to a more reasionable value?
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Dig and adit

Don't you think dig and adit mechanic is a bit too powerful with ug races and considering this only costs 200 gold to make a hole next to an enemy cap? I think that feature makes games with ug and ug races very unbalanced, also tested on your hamachi servers in games. I think soft ug walls so tunneling turns useful, is allready enough. Additional ug entrances near capitols are almost impossible to defend against.
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Incarnates
Incarnates are too strong without strike and EW still not in common sphere.
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Fire halo
Now that fire halo protects vs TC webs as well as overland webs like spider's curse and wildfire i would consider to increase the upkeep its just 2 mana, its too low even for this masked feature to give cold weakness on cold immune units.How many units have cold strike and cold based attacks?, prolly the same few number that have holy attacks.

I'd rather would like to see fire excel in combat spells instead mainly summons/enchants.

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Pioneer costs
Pioneers that ram up their costs do this even if they get detroyed before an outpost was build, is this intended? Shouldn't they ram up in cost after they build an outpost?

Pioneers only show up in the unit build interface if you have the gold for it. Bug or intended? It confused quite a big number of people so far.
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Heroes

How about making some Heroes unmounted? Especially if your idea of better pole arm units makes it into the game this comes to mind. Pole arm with ew + mighty meek is a bit much for some humble mpe heroes. It would be a bit much for Strange Land(mod) heroes with items too. I suppose, the change makes only sense to counter fast lvl2 cavalry rushes and some fast but heavy lvl3 units?

[This message has been edited by DarkMystery (edited 09-28-2011 @ 09:51 PM).]

Merchant and Survivor

You don't see the real power of Merchant, at all. Try combining it with gold race and/or Shrine of nature and/or building outposts. I have played my last games with this scheme - it gives you so much gold you don't always know what to spend it on (the surplus was so bad once that hurries turned my capitol to outpost around day 10). Survivalist can never do that, and is really helpful only in the late stage of the game.

Dig an adit

Well, Dig an adit is a difficult thing to counter. But playing aggressively while having good defense usually deals with the threat. Though the price could be raised to 250 I think.

Incarnates are too strong without strike and EW still not in common sphere.

Incarnates are rubbish with strike, and they are still very vulnerable because they lose the turn after they are extracted from the unit's body. Personally, I've rarely seen Incarnates kicking someone's ass even w/o strike, but they are rarely used at all, so I'm not totally sure about them. I'll bring them up on the testing when I have a chance.

Now that fire halo protects vs TC webs as well as overland webs like spider's curse and wildfire i would consider to increase the upkeep its just 2 mana

You probably have a point here.

Pioneers that ram up their costs do this even if they get detroyed before an outpost was build, is this intended? Shouldn't they ram up in cost after they build an outpost?

They can't increased cost after building outpost, because it allows you to build 2-3 pioneers for cheap and then found these outposts at once.

Pioneers only show up in the unit build interface if you have the gold for it. Bug or intended?

Wrong, pioneer only shows up in the list if you don't build anything else. This was done intentionally to prevent loop and queue price exploits.

How about making some Heroes unmounted?

Just making some of the heroes not mounted is not enough, they need a full work-up: they are mess in almost every aspect at the moment, from stats to upgrades. It's hell of a job, and I'm not sure we're ready for this (but I hope we'll get there one day). Also, uPatch guys are already working on this, so we probably won't need to =)

It is surely not the best place, and it is probably going to be double-posting... But nobody's perfect
Is anyone up for MPE PBEM? I do not want to create a recruitment thread because I did not dig deep enough into the changes to be able to answer possible questions, but if anyone else is ready to pick up the glove, it would be nice.

@Kharagh RE: post #348...I know a method that might allow you to place a new outpost...

(1) build 2 pioneers
(2) raze a city near where you wish to build your new outpost
(3) use the first pioneer to build the new outpost
(4) use the second pioneer to re-build the razed city

As one of the cities is razed I think chances are that new places to build an outpost might be recognized.

I have used this trick described above once on a different scenario and it worked because after I razed the city there were new places to build an outpost that were not there before the city was razed.

[This message has been edited by flyguy (edited 10-01-2011 @ 00:36 AM).]

Hello - I think this mod is great but am I the only one getting empty sprites (i.e. invisible units except for their shadows) for all the 'new' units (Rebuilder, tunelling drill, race priests, etc.)?

Also I have been unable to find any ILB file for download, which would come in as a great addition for creating custom content. Custom unit models would be nice, but sadly I don't have a clue of graphic programming!

(Sorry if my post is redundant, I just didn' feel up to reading all the 12 pages of this thread...)