@ ArkhanTheBlack:

I think in a magic world it's perfectly logical that mages can feel the presence of each other

Yes to the mages and yes to feel the presence. But we don't see any logic in non-magical creatures seeing domains from far away.

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@ DarkMystery:

Can de RMG be more improved? Like fixed start positions?

That's very unlikely. We wanted to increase minimum distance between starting positions to eliminate too close starts, but failed. RMG code is just bizarre to analyze without the source code (and probably even with it), and finding things there is incredibly difficult task.

Furthermore, its possible to give start position at 1 fixed random magic node and random gold structure next to your towers?

Same thing here.

i'll hope ug starts could be improved

And that's about 5 times more impossible than all previous RMG ideas together =(

How about a 2nd ug realm as in aow1, instead of the shadow realm or in addition?

AoW generally follows a simple rule: if something can be hardcoded, it is hardcoded =) So there's a lot of code all over the exe that's written for the current set of layers. And adding another layer would require overwriting all of it. It's another unchangeable constant, as 15 races and 8 players.

Btw, why was taunt and death immunity removed from the glutton, just cause of the new swallow whole formula?

Well, yes. Glutton got a lot of misc bonuses to compensate the uselessness of Swallow whole, and since we improved it, there's no need in these extra bonuses anymore.

What about merchant skill?

IIRC, it was 20 or 25% initially, but appeared to be incredibly overpowered and was gradually weakened to the current value. Anyway, the bonus will be made editable in the future.

But we don't see any logic in non-magical creatures seeing domains from far away.

The wizard sees them not the creatures. It's not necessary to show the borders if none of his units are in the area.
But well, it's your mod, so it's perfectly fair to adjust it to your liking...

[This message has been edited by ArkhanTheBlack (edited 08-21-2011 @ 11:38 AM).]

Tir, so did you played with russians at that network? Maybe they can beat some sense and respect into you. Btw, not all of them share idea of weaking ss.
Hellbrick, you better play with Tir a bit, and after that try to say about trolling if you will be able.

Trolls are welcome to join the IRC aow channel, and of course nice people too, its getting quite busy here.

I tried hamach and only found few people cause of vacations. I think most can join that IRC channel, just a few can possible not. Hellbrick was there too.

Btw, why was taunt and death immunity removed from the glutton, just cause of the new swallow whole formula?

Well, yes. Glutton got a lot of misc bonuses to compensate the uselessness of Swallow whole, and since we improved it, there's no need in these extra bonuses anymore.

I tested this new swallow whole ability, used swallow whole III that veteran gluttons get(silver medal). Used it in an online game and some heavy single batttles vs AI to be sure about results. And i used vanilla gluttons quite often in big stacks so i have a good comparission with the original.

First of, i have to ask what the swallow whole levels exactly do? Gaining more hp restoration obviously not, what would be good, actually to improve it.

Anyways, i have to say something in the formula needs to be changed, Swallow Whole III is in no way better than vanilla swallow Whole and its also far from useless, it worked exactly like your new formular. It does consume units with low hp(usally <10, rarely <20hp) and not those above 25, which function is set to false.
To be any better and useful than original Swallow whole you need to remove the 25 cap or set it higher, like hp28 for instance. Swallow Whole immunity at >25hp makes the results exactly the same as in vanilla if not worser.
Maybe swallow whole IV(needs a gold medal) is a bit better than vanilla but not swallow whole III.

MPE glutton is possibly the weakest lvl4 now with same swallhow whole(or worser hp gains need to be considered) and removal of very good abilities. Its weakness is revealed in siege combat especially, that is why it was made a bit stronger in open fields in 1.4 and possible evil vs evil counter in those fights vs lords and reapers with their death immunity on silver, both of these lvl4 units dominate now.

So i suggest please change the formula back to gluttons favor so its indeed better than vanilla and give it back taunt, so units don't ignore it in siege combat, shooting it from afar with that ridiculous low def. AS it stands now, there is hardly a use of current gluttons shamans also have high res, but are cheaper and work better.
With a swallow whole that has bit higher success to work on high hp units(any number higher than 25 will do) and does restore more hp, the higher gold cost, removal of leadership levels and removal of deathprotection and immunity is justfified well and balanced. Keep in mind high hp units can survive swallhow whole if the low def gluttons gets killed, by heroes which are melee immune to swallow whole effect and shooters firing from afar.

[This message has been edited by DarkMystery (edited 08-23-2011 @ 11:06 PM).]

For now I'll just show you this. Eventually you will be able to screw around with all these parameters however you want in the mod settings

Thank you for the link.

Hm, what about the hp gains if this ability is sucessful?

The question for me so far is not, if swallow whole formula is a bit better than vanilla one, but if its noticeable against other lvl4 units or units that have just high hp like mammoth rider. The issue just is, if a lvl4 unit with a lot of damage and high attack attacks a high hp unit its probably finished in 3 swings anyways or badly wounded in 2 big hits, and swallow whole worked most of the time vs units with hp smaller than 10. Its a tricky ability to balance.

However, i used gluttons with silvermedal,fury and fire halo enchants might screw results up a bit, need to test this with gluttons that do low dmg to the target might try them unenchanted vs other high hp units with liquid form and poison immunity(karaghs) to see how it really works in practise. Problem here just is, lvl4 units are hardly unenchanted in MP games, only AI does this mistake.

Increasing hp cap and furthermore min chance even more might be a good point to start with. You used very cautious values here. Have you tested gluttons against other high hp units with higher numbers there? Developers of this game made it so, that in version 1.1 or 1.2 swallow whole gave 5hp back, even if lvl1 units were consumed it was a fixed value. Might that be more balanced than a more sucessful swallow on high hp units? Glutton in its current form has a big problem in surviving hits, compensation through hp gains might do the trick, wouldn't help much vs lvl4 though. Depends on playstyle i saw people useing a lot of lvl2 units and games where people massing lvl4 units most of the time. Also depensd on map size and settings.

Finally with that new formular, it seems Glutton is only better now against Leprechauns. They have low hp, so success chance to swallow them is higher than before and they are also lvl4, which means pretty high hp gain.
However, can't remember that original glutton was ever bad vs leprechauns. With high attack, dmg, and res he was always very good against them.

I remember Glutton was the hardest unit to balance out of all lvl4 units, its a bit unique after all. It can't be balanced quickly like staightforward units as a Karagh.

To change the topic i want to talk about the racial bonuses and some changes here:

I think construct bonus is stronger a bit than growth bonus, not only does it build buildings and units faster, its also a money safer, cause other races needs to rush units or buildings more than construct races, too.

Furthermore i think the shadow demons are very good now with that devourer(free movement, improved devour), lvl2 flyer with night vision and vision, and faster Lord and do not need construction bonus, it does not fit to them, what does fit is growth bonus. They have actually in the game higher growth than goblins with units like the harvester that devour and spawn larvas. You create units at a quick rate, and there is the metamorphosis for the larva on gold medal. It all says growth bonus to me.

Draconians(Lizards) too, need growth bonus not research bonus. They have their hatchling with draconian growth, growth bonus fits and we would have now 3 races with growth bonus.

After this research conversation to mana can be set back to 100% cause only archons and undead do use research bonus and with their bad alignments they kinda start with anarchist. Its pure logic, that they need the best bonus the game can offer as its a risky to play with them or have their aligngments. I saw it in rated ladder games that people did lose games that they had completely dominated. Lost to just the alignment trouble, cause their army where the wizard and tower wasm, simply rebelled and attacked on the same turn. And this easily happens if you just conquer a city with a different alignment get neutral units as quest rewards and forget to migrate it in your 2 or 3 minute turns in the late game where you have a lot of stuff to manage.

[This message has been edited by DarkMystery (edited 08-24-2011 @ 12:16 PM).]

About Gluttons:

There are other tactics besides mass lvl 4 =) Gluttons are incredibly efficient against massive lvl 2-3 units, they can take out much bigger crowds of low-level stuff than any other lvl 4 units. And if they could also compete with heavy lvl 4 units, they would be obviously overpowered.

Though I agree that the right balance in this question depends a lot on the game settings. In the world that evolves mainly around lvl 4, gluttons as they are now will kinda suck, yes. Support for the changes you want to make will be added in the next major release - until then, you can always make an MPE-based mod to improve Gluttons with stats or additional abilities, if it's such a big problem.

About new growth races:

Personally, I agree with changing demons' bonus and disagree with changing draconians' bonus =) However, I doubt these ideas fit well in the patch context: we're trying to stay in touch with the classic resources as long as it doesn't hurt more important concepts. Switching bonuses like this sounds more like a mod thing.

About research conversion rate:

It will be possible to change it in the mod settings.

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 08-24-2011 @ 12:29 PM).]

Yes game settings. And about gluttons vs lower tier you are right, but there are high hp lvl3 units too and i saw some bad results here and i wondered why the glutton died vs just a big beetle, just unlucky? I wonder what mammoth riders will do, problem is also if he die the swallowed units will be respawned and no kill ever happened.

Main problem i see with them though is the siege, where the defender attacks freely first round, you see here the real weakness of the gluttons, simple lvl1 shooters and a ballista kill that green blobs massive hp very easily, i wonder then if he had enough hp to compensate the low def?

Btw, i edited my prior post, to speak a bit about the racial bonuses.
I currently thing frostlings(naturally) and shadow demons are a bit strong on all levels.
Also did test new spectres with lower res and magic protection. I have to say the res (10) was better than the this new change, simply cause resistence is more versatile than magic protection, it protects you against magic attacks more often.
But nice attempt to weaken EW a bit.

I added the answers to additional questions to the post while you were writing the new one =)

About new growth races:

Personally, I agree with changing demons' bonus and disagree with changing draconians' bonus =) However, I doubt these ideas fit well in the patch context: we're trying to stay in touch with the classic resources as long as it doesn't hurt more important concepts. Switching bonuses like this sounds more like a mod thing.

Honestly, mpe1.5 is a mod thing allready, its very different to 1.4, a project i had a major part of. Does not feel much like 1.4 at all, just replay both and you see what i mean. 1.4 is a bit faster paced, cause higher tier units count more.(higher tier has more mp, is more powerful makes game shorter)
6mp/hex on 2 more terrains, block 5 on lvl1 units and soon i think high polearm levels for these other lvl1 units, research conversation ratings, mud/tremor changes. It all has a heavy impact on the original balance. Personally, i would not give lvl1 units stronger abilities but just more hp, same hp as most lvl2 units at least so they don't die so quickly. But if you want awesome units you better produce higher tier.

Yes making a own mod might be a good idea at this points, as i got many ideas on balancing stuff. Also dirt cheap rebuilders should be availibe to counter early razing a bit. I wonder if you can make rebuilders that only rebuild gold and magic nodes only, not outposts, villages, etc?

When does the new mpe version come out?

Honestly, mpe1.5 is a mod thing allready

Well, of course there are modding elements =) Even official patches had them. My point is we're trying not to get carried away by adding units, shuffling race features and spheres or something like that. MPE is meant to be about providing new possibilities, not about turning the game into something completely different (even though these two ideas often coexist). And though we can't introduce new features without the impact on the old gameplay, we want to "minimize the damage", so to speak.

I wonder if you can make rebuilders that only rebuild gold and magic nodes only, not outposts, villages, etc?

Nice idea, we'll try to provide a generic way to rebuild only some types of things.

When does the new mpe version come out?

Have no idea =) 1.5.2 testing is still not exactly moving on, but when something starts to happen, it shouldn't take long to finish. In the meantime, I'm working on something huge for the next major version - if this "something" will work, it's gonna be a very big breakthrough =)

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 08-24-2011 @ 02:48 PM).]

I wonder if you can make rebuilders that only rebuild gold and magic nodes only, not outposts, villages, etc?

That would be very nice, indeed!

Edit: and hoping the project has to do with creating extra abilities.

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 08-25-2011 @ 03:30 PM).]

Its possible to make a pure neutral alignment? ;> Named rather true neutral?

Yep. Units can be made pure neutral even now; and though I never tried to change the race alignment, I remember seeing a place that can help with it.

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 08-27-2011 @ 05:08 AM).]

Yep, thought draconians could have that, so all research races have an extreme alignment and conversion rate back to original.
Witch such alignment penalities i can see the best race bonus justified.

Hey guys, great looking mod. I love most of the changes.

I do have one request, and as you did say to 'ask the impossible'...

I have always wanted a random map generator that can place the new buildings and units.

My friends and I generally roll up a huge random map and then play cooperatively against Emperor AIs. Our games would be much more fun if the 'new' units from patch 1.4 could make an appearance.

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I'll say anyway that Gargoyle can be kinda overpowered with water sphere. With liquid form it only takes half the damage of any kind of attack, it cant be affected by double gravity and rarely by entangle / web etc. On top of that gargoyles get regeneration at silver now, and also water sphere got healing showers, which makes them even more unstoppable.

There isnt any proper counters, except for level 4 flyers perhaps, but making those takes much longer, and isnt much stronger anyways. So I think it would be best to set gargoyle back to its original values, so I cant abuse them anymore. (the attack bonus and regeneration is bit much IMO)

Cheers

Liquidform'ed Gargoyle will become vulnerable to 2x gravity due to LF canceling Fire immunity. Neat, huh?

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 09-04-2011 @ 04:50 AM).]

Hey HB, can you change firestorm, deatstorm, spider's curse etc.....in a way so it can be used in the ug too? Its odd that wild fire works in the ug and firestorm not for instance.

Another annoyance is the mass confusion spell, it costs 30cp and does nothing. I tested it some rounds vs 3 stacks of lvl1-2 units(mostly lvl1) it affects those units but it does not much.
Would be better if they always get beserk and attack neighbor?

Else, i suggest to lower the cp cost 30cp is a waste, in any situation. Not that a good expierence in siege either with it.

DM, test of Mass Confusion may fail if the enemy is behind the walls (and even then, sometimes it works well). Try it in the open field, and enjoy the show. In my games, it works, and it rocks, and is definitely worth the 30CP.

Underground storms/etc. are planned and most likely will be done - it sounds pretty easy.

About confusion. You both have good points: this spell can kick ass and this spell can suck. The part where units with Confused status just stand still is plain stupid, it would be really nice to eliminate it, as well as the bug Oleg mentioned (usually known as panic bug). But unfortunately the code responsible for this auto-move behavior is very difficult to analyze, so I kinda doubt we'll be able to change it.

In an FFA game today i used M.C. on 3stacks of lvl1-2 units, and it was on the open field. I just said i had not that fantastic results with it in the siege either.

So, this sucks on the open field too. If there can nothing be done maybe reduce cp a bit? I can't see to cast it instead of a swarm, comet or fireball.

How about firedomain? I never felt it does enough dmg in online games. Units should burn at the start of each TC, if you enter combat and this one is active in your realm.

Interesting idea. And a very difficult one =)

Wow, HB... I went through the changelog, and it's mindblowing, great job!!!

Remember the Glutton:

Just had a talk with Muna about it.

HB, if you want to make the Glutton playable again, by just improving the swallow whole ability, you need to improve its hp gain. The success chance is not the big factor here, i think you missunderstood the unit.

Attack and dmg is so high, that succes chance will always be 100% as the hp drop low really quickly in old formula so the new forumla is not that much needed for this, your 5 nerfs kinda destroyed the unit.
Usually glutton has like any lvl4 unit, enchants, that improve his strikes anyways like ew, darkgift and fury, these dirctly increase his success of swallow whole as low hp come by quickly.

Just saying swallow whole is all about hp gain, what you sadly nerfed. So those swallow whole levels should increase hp gain too and together with taunt it will be an ok unit again, cause i think without taun people will just avoid the glutton with melee and just attack with ranged units, his hp are not that massive to survive it. Just +4hp more than lord but without the masssive defense. Most attacks are physical based so the high res just helps a little. few archerse and ballistas with and without ew will take care of him too easily.

If you compare it to lords wich have alot of hp too, but 20 deaf easily with ledershipII, silver medal and stone skin and their death immunity you understand perhaps the problem here. Not only vs lords but rather lord is better gainst any unit, both are constructor races, and i do not see why playing orcs and not shadow demons if you want a certain win.

lvl4 units are pretty important cause in ffa games we play with all units, lvl4 units will sooner or later appear always.
+ glutton is not good vs low units either, thats kinda a wrong info here. He might be good vs noobs that don't know how to counter it, a few lvl1 ranged units kill this glutton easily.

If you don't improve hp gain there is only the solution of increasing the hp further or def.

Look at the def once pls :P he cannot survive without massive hp gain.

btw in patch 1.1 or 1.2 it was 5hp gain / unit always. And unit level did not matter, i think he had death immunity too with medals, but not taunt and gas breath.

yeah, this annoyance really upsets me, while rest of the mod is quite enjoyable, i see my option while playing cors limited to lvl1-lvl3 units if i would play a homogene anarchistic strategy with them.

-----------------------------------------------------------

On Goblins:

And small note i think goblins needs double growth bonus is not as much worth anymore as before, due to some changes in mpe. Limited outpost massing and merchant change, merchant + goblins worked before merchant was changed in very bad ways. Cause creating gold in cities at the start of game is better than an general income of the gold you allready earn. Cause if you don't earn any gold cause of bad start pos and some upkeep you won't get anything out of the merchant even if it would set to maybe a hypothetically 100%.
What can be done is lower the upkeep of their weakes units, lvl1 units they are clearly worser than most other lvl1 units, wyvern(its not good in battle in any way), big beetle.
Or a general survior bonus.
I think they are no longer attractive to play at all, they should have a strenght too, not only weaknesses. While you nerfed their 2mp/hex with haste in ug with Karaghs, that make sense, but did weaken their lvl4 phase along with their low tier setup that is allready weak. I saw 1 lvl1 summon beating 3 goblin lvl1 units. And lets not image whata fireball with warmage will do to their little hp. all around on lvl1-3.
They need buffs in some ways, like inherent survivor.
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Merchant:

like i had in late game 550 gold income and researched mechant as last wizard skill and i got 600 income...only. Can't stay on 10%, please raise it to a more usefull value like 20%. I think it was 25% once? I think less than 20% makes this skill not worth 3 points anymore.

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Magic:

I wonder what you think about the magic balance? I think fire(with a few spell exceptions mentioned earlier), air(in duels) water and earth are pretty strong, especially water and earth.

But Life and especially death seem a bit behind now? In versatility i mean. Look at water what i consider stronges sphere now. It got everything, powerful combat dmg spells with great hail and a freezing 1 hex spell. Area Healing with healing rains. Strong and tactical summons. Very strong enchantment. Strong Global spells that increase economy - Spring rains. Strong terrain altering spells wetlands and mud.

I do not see quite that versatility in life and death spells. Can something be improved for them? It feels something is lacking there. I noticed well that most lvl1 units were pretty much enhanced but i feel black spider need to have more mp to stay competitive in online games. Thats just 1 thing. Summoning seems ok and few disabling spells also on global level, but i wonder, why earth has poison domain and golden age, poison domain seems more death related. I said that 6-8 years before :P. Why poison domain for earth? it makes no sense, its strong enough without it.

Now, i don't want you to think i an only critizise its for killing some annoyances and make the game expierence more fun. I think you made shrine quests and rewards very well done now. Average quests no longer give away lvl4 spells, and reputation of the spirit stays the same so you get only hard quests once you reached them. Lvl up option of war spirit reward much improved too. Its very good and a clear improvement.

i don't think there need a special mod about this to be done just some small changes that make things usable again.
I also invite you to play game with us, as i promoted mpe quitea bit over there, so we finally play mpe a lot in ffa games.
Seems summer is over and people are coming back to play games more regulary, i also got some new recruits. Room is filling. You need to be there and play some big ffa games see all your coding in heavy action too. i am not so sure if hamachi crowd is playing much ffa on big maps?

[This message has been edited by DarkMystery (edited 09-05-2011 @ 12:55 PM).]

Glutton.

I'm gonna make a stand on Glutton being good against low-level units. It's the only unit (well, besides Incarnate) who can kill most of lv1-3 units in 1 hit, therefore saving priceless retaliation strikes. Nasty non-brute-force units people love to mass due to their mobility and abilities (Pegasuses, Flyers, Shades, Spectres, etc.) usually don't have a chance against Gluttons, and to compensate that we think it's perfectly fine for Glutton to be weak against another lv4s. After all, Orcs have Warlords to counter lv4: they are not that far from lv4 stats, and due to being lv3 they can be produced in bigger quantities than lv4.

Speaking about HP restoration rate, we probably wouldn't nerf it, if it wasn't for the Blood totem. Swallow whole + Life stealing is a huge problem, and with old HP restoration rate and improved consume chance this combination was making Gluttons nearly unbeatable, and even now it's still a very dangerous combo.

And finally, one resources set is not enough to cover both TC duels and FC FFAs - I think I already mentioned that a few pages earlier =) Saints, seducers, leveling up and structure guards are obviously need to be balanced differently depending on whether or not TC against indies is allowed. And difference in map size means differences in game and distances lengths, dictating different usage of units and spells of different levels.

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Goblins and Merchant.

You sound like Merchant doesn't work on cities =) It just doesn't discriminate anymore: whether you have cities or mines as your primary income source, the skill will do the job. And another interesting thing is it increases the racial bonus too: for example, I played some games with Tigrans + Merchant (-Pacifist) during testing and it was a pretty comfortable set-up.

Can't say anything adequate about goblins and their bonus: haven't played them for very long time due to RMG screwing up UG starts =)

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Magic. How do I see the balance... Ok, here comes a lot of IMHOs =)

Life has incredibly powerful unicorn rush, potential Doom wolves from Call of forest, over-annoying healing and Angels that become very difficult to kill after they reach some critical mass and start to heal themselves very effectively. But no good global spells, a support unit as lv2 and no lv3 summon. My personal verdict: a boring sphere to play for and a very annoying sphere to play against. Something must be done with Life domain.

Death is the most damaging and TC-oriented sphere out there: Dark gift, Bone dragon + Animate dead, Corpus furia, Damnation. Weaken is a killer feature against your precious stoneskinned tough guys =) Infect for killing immune to death guys. A lot of nasty combos here. Black spiders are very tactical: they can conquer structures better than any other lv1 summons and win most of scout duels easily and repeatedly. Domain of darkness is incredible pain in the ass if you can justify building Wizard tower. On the other hand, no lv2 summon either and lv1 is a very bad scout (apart from winning the mini-duels thing). But still a very powerful sphere IMO, where almost every spell is really useful (City plague being the only exception).

Also, Death and Life have Willpower enchantments, which is very useful in many circumstances.

Fire is... just powerful. Probably the most versatile sphere in the game: strong summons on all levels with a rare weakness, good choice of battle spells of all possible types (single-target, area-target, full-battlefield-target, unique Combustion, Swarm and Mass confusion), cheap Willpower enchantment. Global spells are stupid though: Anarchy is a joke, Fire domain is weak and Forge blast is very very difficult to use (though the effect is very cool). It's the sphere that's worth a place in international bureau of weights and measures.

Water is decent and specific. It has unique interesting features, but has a lot of drawbacks in the same time. First of all, if the opponent picks Fire, you're screwed =) Lurker, elementals and Liquid form become good for nothing, Water dancer sucks - that leaves only Wyrm. Which is not easy thing to learn =) Wetland doesn't work on RMG maps, at least not as it's supposed to work. Enchantments cost a lot and/or are very specific, no simple furies and blesses are available. Mist cloak is stupid, Healing showers are weak and Vengeful vapor rarely works against lv3-4. On the other hand, good lv1 scout and Static shield.

Earth is overpowered in combination with War mage =) Which is why we are currently working on weakening this combination. Other than that, it has a lot of useless things and very few useful ones, so it is often used as a part of Cosmos mix, for Stone skin and probably some battle spells =) But as a pure sphere it's not that good. Summons are not impressive, especially the slow elemental, global spells are crap, except for the Golden age and Earth awareness, but they both are very expensive and lv4, therefore rare.

And I really, really hate Air. I want to get Tornado uninvented, it's a cheat =) Other than that, it's just like Water, with a lot of very specific spells, but with less weaknesses.

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 09-05-2011 @ 01:47 PM).]

Hi,
I'm new to the AoW:SM scene.
I'd like to know if this patch (1.5) and the BNW 3.2 mod are compatible?

Thanks!

ok, i really wondered only about your water sphere comment. LIke you said water is screwed if someone takes fire.....i think its exactly the other way around. ;>

The problem here is you undervalue healing rain a lot, healing rain can be casted multiple times with some heroes and the wiz. It wil heal ANY dmg on ALL units if you know how to do it. It means, those fireballs are rendered useless. We had those games. using heavy summons with water is really not my tactic I rather go for great hail and ss and use lurkers and rarley waterdancers, they all have no fire weakness and are just support.
The amazing power with healing rain is, this tactic with many heroes works on the very early game, too.

That part with the call of the forest summoning doomwolfes is quite interesting, espcially if you would play with anarchist and different alignment as neutral or archons. Rebelling lvl4 razers can be kinda nasty. ;>

You missed poison domain of the earth globals and basilisk as a great summmon. Boars are a fast and versatile scout+combat unit, it has forestry and night vision even, so...EARTH is the sphere that is screwed against FIRE. As those stone skin tactics + boars are totally usless against fireballs + swarm dmg, they kill(or badly wound them) all these units in turn1, especially as defender where the attacker cannot spread his units. And especially if there is a cpIII in play along with the wizards cp. Now with war shrines new lvl up reward, its extremely easy to get these cp quickly.

I consider water the best and most versatile sphere, 1 hex freeze spell, 1 hex dmg spell geyser, multi hex dmg spell with multi shots and freeze affect with great hail, ability of healing multiple targets for only cp10, what is really gamebreaking with 2-3 heroes and cp10 or more, as it counters any dmg done if the units were not killed on that last turn.

Wyrm as very gread summon, it has innherent SS. Water walker is not that bad either, its one of the best lvl2 summons in those early siege battles. Then spring rains for more gold. Poison clouds for poison status effect. and wetlands is really awesome now in this mod. Whats not working? It turns all terrain to swampland and if you load & save + some turns it will turn the lands into water.


I see the clear winner here, and after water its fire for me. But fire got more filler spells then water and this is the annoying part of it. And i think all these filler spells should get a closer look at, to make them useful in online games. I could think about many ways how to improve fire domain. It could like i said make units burn in TC at the start of the battle or work with a damnation global map effect and prevent healing only along with doing minor dmg only then fire domain is able to start dealing actual dmg. Of course last change could make this spell easily too strong in some scenarios were people heavenly use lvl1-2 units, if its used together with wildfire and/or firestorm. However i like how this could drive some evil domain razers quickly out of your own domain, though.

But overall the magic balance is probably even better than the unit balance, which is good just for a few exceptions.(goblins(all, except trolls, butcher, but most of the time as cap defender. karagh avg and uninteresting at best), gluttons, spectres)
Warlords are like gluttons, HB.
They are both way too easy to counter, they work good together, but not alone, just currently it would make more sense to support warlords with shamans, or just build shamans only. If i see any warlord stack you can be assured i will prepare nasty counter units quickly. Do not know why there are people that attacka glutton with the wrong units. No retaliation with those archers, centaurs, machines, trolls(technically they have strike, but also long range attack with boulders ignoring often obstacles in their flypath and it hits often low def units for big hits), all with high dmg and attack rate as def is pretty low on gluttons. Maybe a glutton can get one, But thanks to swallow wholes bit stupid mechanics it can be saved and life again. This ablity is just for hp gain and life steal isn't fantastic either, if we speak about the late game. Noticed that high dmg chart every lvl4 with few exceptions has? Those abilities are more powerful vs really weak units that do only low dmg and as hero support.

I can't wait to get these halberdiers with polearm3 into my hands though. When is the next version ready? And the rmg feature that will make ug races start always on surface, will be in there 100%? It will make ug races playable again, i guess even goblins. :P

[This message has been edited by DarkMystery (edited 09-05-2011 @ 08:31 PM).]

@balvan64

Hello and welcome to the community.

The MP Evolution 1.5 mod and BNW 3.2 mod are not compatible. They are both mods and you can either play one or the other.