These are some very exciting changes! Will have to go through these in more detail later.



As a moderator, I must remind people to withold comments and questions on this site about the origin of these (exe) changes!

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 05-02-2011 @ 10:03 AM).]

One of our guys just found a bug, so the hotfix is out (link in the main post is updated as well). Sorry for inconvinience)

Many, many awesome modifications! I especially like the changes on spells and the movement system and various skills involved. Also the bug fixes and RMG changes are very nice. Nice job!

wow, just wow. Thats alot of changes, and i like them.
One thing i've always wanted was magic relays on random maps.

Too many changes to count (good thing). Might have to join a PBEM on it if people get interested in such a thing.

Wow, this MP1.5 patch is incredible. Nice work fellas. Real nice work.

Congratulation to your whole team for creating such a patch/mod!

Looks very interesting...
I really took one hour to read big parts of your teams patch web page and to write this post .
Many nice changes! Some I donīt like but thats OK too.

What I like most is the intelligence, game-knowledge and even wisdom you show at many of the changes in this mod.
Thumbs up!

Some things like hiding the domain range are really great!
Real bug fixes for example!
So/to many cool things to count here!


Some things I donīt understand when I read you patch/mod description page:

Abilities
New ability - Dig an adit (has replaced Build watch tower ability)
Allows to build a new gateway from/to the underground

and then...

General
Tower builder
available in the Siege workshop
Def = 6, Res = 6, HP = 15, MP = 32
Price = 100 gold
Abilities: Walking, Build roads, Build watchtower, Poison immunity, Fire weakness, Block

As far as I understand the build watchtower ability was removed?


What happened to:

Magic
Fire
Anarchy has been removed

Earth
Level Terrain has been removed
Raise Terrain has been removed

Looks like you have great experience in EXE changes and understanding the programming language so maybe I am allowed to ask about the changes we all beg for...
"Is it possible to add new abilities and spells"?

@Groll: The fragments you mentioned are from an earlier version of the mod ("Pre-MPE: MP mod 1.7"), so these are not contradictions, just things from an earlier release that were changed in the current version.

Thanks everybody, we're glad to see that interest in our work exists in HG community as well =) Now to the questions.

First of all, one thing should be said: 'MP 1.7' section is not a part of our work. It's a mod by some of your onliners, which existed before we started out patch project. It had a lot of nice balancing stuff done, so we used it as a starting point for our work.

So MP 1.7 change log is mentioned just in case some people are not familiar with it. It's like an appendix or something. Basically, the document should be read from bottom to top - it's maybe a bit counter-intuitive, but it's usually the way change logs are written, with the newest stuff being added to the top.

Now things should become somewhat clearer. Tower builder had been added in MP 1.7 and was removed in MPE after Build tower ability had become non-existing. Raise/Level terrain spells had been removed in MP 1.7 so Earth sphere would have 5 spells on each level - we returned them back. Same thing with the Anarchy spell - though I don't remember when exactly it came back, but it's available in the game now, I have just checked it.

And to the main stuff...

"Is it possible to add new abilities and spells"?

That's a tricky question. If you would ask this a few months ago, I'd answer "No.", but now... Correct answer is somewhere between "Don't know for sure" and "Not YET". Some things have been discoveries that give us a reason to believe that it should be possible. Maybe not in a way "we can create whatever we want", but with some limitations it's theoretically doable. But I don't want to give false promises here: there's no real implementation yet, and there's no guarantee there will be one after all. We will definitely try to do this in 1.6, that's what I can say for sure =)

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 05-02-2011 @ 03:48 PM).]

Some great changes you've made, I especially like the changes to movement abilities - Snow Wanderer, multiple levels of Forestry, Mountaineering...

As for new abilities, I'd like an "Invoke Death" ability like in AoW1, it would make the Reaper a much more interesting unit...

Thank you HellBrick for this nice answer.
Itīs a pity that you programmers donīt have permission and access to to the SC. Itīs such an old game with so less people that still play it.
Other companies give the fans access to the needed parts of the games and many other games gain a lot from fan projects.

But thatīs not the core of this thread.

Iīm sad to see the Bild Watchtower ability go away and the new ability to dig a cave entrance to the surface is a very dangerous one. Itīs is s fantastic new ability in any case but itīs a gamebreaking one in any case too.

But whatever somebody prefers...

Your team made a fantastic patch/mod!
You should be honored for this!

I'd like an "Invoke Death" ability like in AoW1

I have to admit I'm not really familiar with AoW1 (and Jobe says he doesn't remember it well enough) - what exactly is this ability supposed to do?

Itīs a pity that you programmers donīt have permission and access to to the SC

*sigh* A pity indeed... Well, we can always hope that developers will hear about this project ("The developers also frequent our site", I've heard today from Swolte) and, being impressed by the determination and obsession this patch could never be made without, will make the decision to finally give those who want to continue supporting the game an opportunity to actually do it... =) But dreams are just dreams, we have to deal with what we have at the moment.

I have to admit I'm not really familiar with AoW1 (and Jobe says he doesn't remember it well enough) - what exactly is this ability supposed to do?

It's simple - if the target unit doesn't resist, it gets killed immediately (it's a touch ability). IIRC in AoW1 it checks both defense and resistance, but it doesn't have to work the same way in SM. Also I think Death Immunity should protect from it. But I'm afraid adding such ability can be hard, because the AI should be able to use it properly.

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 05-02-2011 @ 04:58 PM).]

Again, awesome work fellas. Fantastic.

Below is my dream wish for further alterations. I realize some requests are probably no way, but thought I'd ask. First and foremost, I'm excited to see a "maybe" for additional spells and abilities.

Tactical Combat
1. Prevent targeting of units with immunities (i.e. Black Bolts cannot target a unit with Death Immunity). Similar to Seduce/Dominate not targeting units with Willpower.

2. Play on-line Tactical Combat on your laptop only (i.e. don't see other's battles unless your units involved). I'm sure if you could do this you would have.

Unit Abilities
1. Different Swimming levels similar to the new movement levels. Non-native water units would pay more for traveling in water.

2. Is there a difference between Sailing, Water Walking, and Swimming? If not, combine into one and potential utilize the other abilities for something else (like you did with Crusader and Build Tower).

3. Suggestion to implemented rule change: Allow Haste to drop to 2 MP so it benefits on roads, etc.


Map Making:
1. Allow multiple level creation (i.e. two undergrounds). A dream I'm sure, but someone actually mentioned it in another thread and, well, I'll ask.


2. Everything modifiable in the editor (i.e. movement point costs, recruitment gold costs, etc.) I think somewhere you mentioned this functionality will be included in the next release.

3. Allow Casting Specialist II+ to be assigned in Editor

Cities:
1. Allow Sanctuary to provide additional units to build (and available in map editor). Along these lines, perhaps all structures such as Wizard Tower I+, Farcaster, etc.


In-progress Games:
1. Allow Casting Specialist II+ to be selected in Customize Wizard


Spells:
1. Enchant Weapon grants "alignment" strike (i.e. holy/death/magic) of wizard. If possible, then removing magic protection from Phsyical Protection units (i.e. shade, spectre, etc.) is on the table.


Web site suggestions/errata:
1. Bombard is written in Russian

2. Show previous ranged attack formula. Also, what effect does mounted/hero have on ranged attacks?

3. Show previous Exp formula (was it just no Medal consideration?)

4. Show previous Devour/Swallow Whole formula

5. What effect does leveling up have on passive abilities? (range and touch shown, but not passive)

6. Show previous Dispel Magic formula

7. Wildfire explanation in Russian

My wish would be that when I edit custom heroes, I can give them fewer att/def/dmg/res/movement points than the standard, also that I could delete some of the attributes that are assigned as standard. For example, I would like to remove the high vision from BNW rangers, especially on smaller maps.

Some changes are great, this patch really goes beyond the ordinary game.

Certain changes look better for balance while some other do the opposite. In general, I can see cosmos wizards to be a lot more powerful than sphere specialist (possibility to get both cosmos spells and sphere's spells).
I'll definitely try this patch.

Great work !

Edit: Pacifist is by no mean 'the least unpleasant negative skill in the game', IMHO. It really depends on player's strategies. Getting only half of the exp for heroes and units is not at all pleasant.

I'd rather pick anarchist and try to adjust race relation/unit morale during the game (population, bard's skill...).

Edit2:

Def penalty has been added to paralyzing abilities

-2 Def
Entangle
Trapped
Webbed
-3 Def
Paralyzed
Stunned

This is fun!

[This message has been edited by naeco (edited 05-04-2011 @ 01:27 AM).]

Those are some interesting ideas you've suggested!

Prevent targeting of units with immunities

That's probably doable. It's really strange this feature wasn't implemented by the game developers in the first place...

Play on-line Tactical Combat on your laptop only (i.e. don't see other's battles unless your units involved).

That would be incredibly difficult to implement, maybe even impossible. And the benefits are not that drastic for the complexity of work, some people don't see this as a good thing (we have already had this idea from our forums ). If it would be an additional option in advanced settings or something, it would be cool, I guess... Still, it's low priority.

Different Swimming levels similar to the new movement levels

Nice idea! Is moved to 1.6 todo-list right away.

Is there a difference between Sailing, Water Walking, and Swimming? If not, combine into one and potential utilize the other abilities for something else

Water walking probably has to stay: all unit enchantments have a separate ability for their effects (e.g. there's both Holy champ and Holy champ enchantment). But Sailing can be deconstructed, I think, unless there's something I don't know about it - it's probably the rarest ability to see in online games =)

Suggestion to implemented rule change: Allow Haste to drop to 2 MP so it benefits on roads, etc

Makes sense to move Haste/Forestry/Snow wandered/etc. speed limit to resources.

Allow multiple level creation (i.e. two undergrounds)

I'm not sure if it's possible either. It's most likely not)

Allow Casting Specialist II+ to be assigned in Editor

Allow Casting Specialist II+ to be selected in Customize Wizard

We had wanted to do it (at least at wizard customization screen), but it seems impossible. Editor probably shares the same problem.

Allow Sanctuary to provide additional units to build (and available in map editor). Along these lines, perhaps all structures such as Wizard Tower I+, Farcaster, etc.

That's a great idea, and a very possible too. Even though we probably won't place any units there in default resources, having such a possibility is obviously a good thing for modding.

Enchant Weapon grants "alignment" strike (i.e. holy/death/magic) of wizard.

That's a controversial one... Conceptually, idea is cool. On the other hand, it's not clear what strikes could Earth, Air and Water have (and what to do with basically two Dark gifts and two Fire halos). Also, a lot of balancing problems can occur... Just imagine Death strike on archer shots. Lightning/Cold strike, if they will be chosen for Air/Water, will make some unique units not unique anymore (Snowscraper, Dark elves priest, Giant warrior, Yeti, etc.). I like to compare such things with Spell casting on units - even though it can be done, it's unlikely a sane idea to use such a feature, because it could break the balance badly.
Though it can be harmlessly done as an optional feature, I think (checkbox in Enchanted weapon settings or something)...
------------------------------------------------------------

Change log questions.
Thanks for pointing out these, some things have been obviously missed. Gonna fix them a little later, for now here's the answers:

Bombard is written in Russian

Problem was it had a point where shots come from lower than normal shooters, because of that shots often bumped into the invisible 'hills' near the bombard.

Show previous ranged attack formula. Also, what effect does mounted/hero have on ranged attacks?

It had mounted/hero issue and 1 / Max range instead of 2 / (Max range + Atk).
Mounted units/heroes have shooting range reduced to 8 hexes. Previously it affected the distance penalty formula, now it just doesn't allow to shoot farther than 8 hexes and that's all.

Show previous Exp formula (was it just no Medal consideration?)

Exactly, it was just Level * 5.

Show previous Devour/Swallow Whole formula

Max consumable HP were set to 20 or 21 (don't remember for sure), and the chance formula was 1/2 - (10/88) ·√ ( [current target HP]-1 ).

What effect does leveling up have on passive abilities?

It's described earlier, separately on different abilities.
•Block - Def bonus now increases with ability level: +2 Def/level
•Devour, Swallow whole - they have ability level in the consume chance formula
•Cause fear, Energy drain, Entangle strike - Support for leveling up has been added: +2 Atk/lvl

Show previous Dispel Magic formula

Err... I don't remember it =) Have to check how exactly it was calculated.

Wildfire explanation in Russian

It's boring, it just explains that Wildfire sucked, so we decided to increase its radius =) It's better to just remove the comment probably.

============================================================

My wish would be that when I edit custom heroes, I can give them fewer att/def/dmg/res/movement points than the standard, also that I could delete some of the attributes that are assigned as standard.

Not sure about removing the abilities, but reducing stats should be possible. Meanwhile, isn't it easier to just change the standard?

============================================================

Pacifist is by no mean 'the least unpleasant negative skill in the game', IMHO.

It depends on the mod used and kind of the games played, I guess. If you have huge PBEMs on some RPG-like mod, where leveling up is everything, the statement obviously won't apply to this =) For our customs it's quite close to truth - games are fast and probably the only units that suffer from no exp penalty badly are priest heroes (no spell casting levels).

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 05-04-2011 @ 04:53 AM).]

I forgot to ask this. Does the patch modify the registry key of AowSM? Will player be able to choose/switch between the patch and the original game? This sure is exciting but most players here (those who play email games), will want to have the option to continue with the current upatch 1.4.

I'll try it tonight if the installation does not create any change to existing PBEM games.

I'm quoting the top post here:

MP Evolution uses its own executables for the game, the editor and the settings program, so it won't interfere with any installed mods

It uses own registry key as well, to store the current mod separately from the current mod SM uses. So basically, SM won't notice that anything have happened at all.

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 05-04-2011 @ 05:40 AM).]

It depends on the mod used and kind of the games played, I guess.

Yes, in mods with a lot of morphs, such as BNW or CoMA, it can make quite a difference.

LONG POST WARNING

Some feedback from the perspective of someone who plays mostly PBEM games on custom maps (you wrote in another thread that the future versions will be more flexible and intended not only for the online community):

Domain borders are no longer displayed
Displaying domain borders had only a negative impact on both gameplay and game logic. Now when they are not visible, heroes (and wizards) can finally use concealment abilities; also scouts can no longer get information on heroes and wizards by seeing the domain from far away.

Messages are still displayed when unit enters or leaves domain (makes sense that creatures can feel presense of wizard's magic field, even if it can't be seen).

I'd prefer it the other way round: the domain should be displayed, but the messages are not needed IMO. I know that the domain can be used to detect things like hidden heroes and the position of the enemy wizard, but I don't think it's a bad thing.

Bying unit costs more than producing it in a city
level 1: x1.25
level 2: x1.5
level 3: x1.5
level 4: x2.0
This change compencates the fact that units in recruitment sites and friendly patrols don't require time to be built and are not limited to the races of player's cities. Therefore, hiring units was way more effective than producing them, which we considered as a big balance flaw.

I'm not sure if I like this change. It's true that I always spend gold to buy the units from recruitment structures before building them in cities. But buying units has some disadvantages too, because you don't really have a choice which units you'll get (you can only determine the order of recruiting them), and catching moving patrols can sometimes be tricky too. So I think the cost should be increased, but not as much, for example something like:

Level 1: x1.1
Level 2: x1.2
Level 3: x1.3
Level 4: x1.5

Also some mods use units of level 0 and higher than 4, how does your change work with them?

(Btw it would be nice if you can modify the editor to allow creating units of other levels than 1-4 without additional tools*, and display these units in the editor when mapmaking.)

*I know how to do this part, but not the other one.

Magic catalyst gives 250 research (was 150)

Good.

New exp gaining formula

[the formula didn't want to get copied here ]

Level - level of killed unit
MedalLevel - victim unit level (0 for base, 1 for silver, 2 for gold)

Killing leveled up units is somewhat harder, and therefore should be rewarded more generous.

Taking into account the target unit's medals is a good idea, but I'd prefer to change the formula even more, so XP gained depends on the target level exponentially instead of linearly, for example:

(4+medal)*2^(target level-1)

medal=0 for none, 1 for silver, 2 for gold

This would also require a change to the XP required to gain medals, to grow exponentially with unit levels too (I think it should be 4*2^level for silver medal and 12*2^level for gold), and probably some changes to the amounts of XP for killing heroes and wizards and to level-up heroes to keep them to scale.

New sphere - "Common" - has been added.

Does the Secret sphere still exist?

Unused research convertion rate is lowered to 30% (was 100%)
Unused research to mana conversion was too powerful, especially in combination with research races. It has been balanced against producing merchandise, which makes the similar thing - converts unused production to gold.

I think it should be 50%.

About the spellbook: Would it be possible to make the spellbook work like in AoW1, so you have to research low level spells first before getting higher level ones?

New slowing down effects of terrains
Snow: move cost ↑6 MP/hex (was 4)
Ice: move cost ↑6 MP/hex (was 4)
Swamp: move cost ↑6 MP/hex (was 4)

That's great, I always wanted such change. How does it impact the movement costs of roads, forests, mountains etc. on these terrains?

New ability - Snow wanderer - increases movement speed on snow and ice
Level 1: 4 MP/hex
Level 2: 3 MP/hex
Crusader ability was sacrificed to create the Snow wanderer. Of course, Snow wanderer doesn't provide willpower and has been removed from Chapter's house (which gives units Willpower from now on)

Great idea, you suggested that you might be able to create new abilities in the future, so I think there should be more abilities like Snow Wanderer. For example you can increase the movement cost of Desert and Beach, and create a Sand Wanderer ability that removes this penalty. Something similar can be done with Wasteland.

Forestry II
3 MP/hex through vegetations

I think there should be 3 levels of Forestry:

No Forestry: 8 MP/Dense Vegetation, 6 MP/Vegetation
Forestry I: 6 MP/Dense Vegetataion, 5 MP/Vegetation
Forestry II: 4 MP/both
Forestry III: 3 MP/both

This would also encourage the modders (including the upatch team) to create objects with the Vegetation movement type.

Mountaineering II-VI
-1 MP/hex per level

I think it's too many levels, and it should also affect Hills (they are used in the upatch):

No Mountaineering: 8 MP/Hills, Mountains impassable
Mountaineering I: 6 MP/Hills, 8 MP/Mountains
Mountaineering II: 5 MP/Hills, 6 MP/Mountains
Mountaineering III: 4 MP/both
Mountaineering IV: 3 MP/both

Swimming levels should work like this:

Swimming I: 8 MP/Water, 5MP/Swamp
Swimming II: 6 MP/Water, 4MP/Swamp
Swimming III: 4 MP both
Swimming IV: 3 MP both

Tunneling II-VI
-1 MP/hex per level

I don't think there's need for so many levels of this ability, 2 levels would be enough (8 MP at lvl1, 4 MP at lvl2).

Haste can't drop movement cost lower than 3 MP/hex

I think the minimum should be 2 MP/hex.

City garrisons (and therefore starting armies) can contain monastery units

Good.

Nodes give increased bonus to Cosmos wizards (+2 power per matching sphere)
For example, Fire x4 / Death x2 wizard will get +18 power from a Fire node and +14 power from a Death node.

This is a great idea, but doesn't it overpower the Cosmos wizards compared to specialists? They get 20 power from Power Nodes, and more than 10 from other types, while specialists only get 20 from their type, and 10 from all other.

Arena training cost is lowered to 2.5 gold/exp (was 5)

Good. I changed it to 2 in my mod, and we planned 2 or 3 in the upatch, because I didn't know how to make it a fractional number.

Merchandise bonus now depends on production rate, not on gold income:
[formula not copied]
BaseProduction - city production rate without any buildings or bonuses (depends only on city size)
RaceProductionBonus - racial production bonus

It makes more sense for merchandise to depend on production, since it's the idle production power which is the source of the merchandise.

Why didn't you just make it depend on the current total production? (Or if it's not possible, use the same multipliers for base production and racial bonus.)

Nomads
Can't grow crop fields
Have got a gold bonus instead

Interesting idea.

Secret glade
Forest radius ↑12 hexes (was 2)

I think it's way too much for custom maps, but maybe something like 4 would be good...

Spirits no longer give quests to raze own or neutral structures

That's great, I hated the Nature Spirit for doing this...

Spirit of Magic
can offer research points as a reward
easy: 100 research
average: 175 research
hard: 250 research
has been made the only spirit that offers mana reward
can't offer gold reward anymore

Sounds logical.

Player-spirit relationship impact on quest levels has been changed (relationship level -> quest levels):
1 lvl -> 1 (was 1)
2 lvl -> 1, 2 (was 1, 2)
3 lvl -> 2, 3 (was 1, 2, 3)
4 lvl -> 3 (was 1, 2, 3)
Formerly spirits could give you easy quests no matter how successfully you accomplish the previous tasks. Now it's way up only - no more backtracking to easy quests after you've pleased spirit to give you average and hard ones.

Good, the average and hard quests were too rare.

Summoner: reduces summon upkeep (-1 mana * unit level)

So it works like Survivalist for Summoned units. Good idea.

Explorer: gives +4 MP to any units (was +20%)
Levels explorer bonus for all the units (foremerely fast units have been receiving +2 hex from explorer, which was just too much).

I like this, Explorer was overpowered.

Fixed bugs: Doing it without the source code is a great accomplishment. If you could only fix the boat bug too... (and other movement related problems that allow some exploits)

Block
Def bonus now increases with ability level: +2 Def/level
↓+2 Def (was +5)

I like this.

That's all for now

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 05-04-2011 @ 11:31 AM).]

I'd prefer it the other way round: the domain should be displayed, but the messages are not needed IMO. I know that the domain can be used to detect things like hidden heroes and the position of the enemy wizard, but I don't think it's a bad thing.

Strategically speaking, I find the display of magic domain not good. It defeats the purpose of some abilities like concealments or invisibility of heroes or items on wizards. If anything only the wizard/player should be able to see his own domains not his opponents or non-ally parties. Of course it'll make it harder to find the fleeing wiz but maybe that'll help promoting the role of True seeing units

About movement on various terrain, I find it weird that moving on road cannot be faster than the highest level of movement on other terrains (i.e: Forestry III or Mountaineering VI). IMO, making them as high as 4MP per hex for the highest level of movement sounds more reasonable. No one wants to see a lesser role of road in the game.

@HellBrick: where would the patch store its registry key, if not in Triumph Studio branch?

@Naeco: Now when I think of it, I like your idea to display only the borders of player's own domain, and keep other wizards' domains secret. I just don't like if the borders are not displayed at all, so I don't know what's in my domain until I try to cast a spell. And I still think the messages about entering/leaving domains should be removed, I don't like the idea of keeping them and removing the domain display, it will lead to players using units to "test" where domains start and overloading the player's memory with that information.

So in short I think the best idea is to remove the messages and keep only the current player's domain displayed.

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 05-04-2011 @ 12:10 PM).]

I suggest the following changes to the Domain of Darkness spell:

Remove the map unexploring effect (it's just stupid IMO).

Units with Night Vision shouldn't have reduced visual range.

All battles in the area of effect should have the Unholy Darkness spell active.

---

A proud member of the Unofficial Patch team.
Creator of the AoW1 Mod.

If anything only the wizard/player should be able to see his own domains

Now when I think of it, I like your idea to display only the borders of player's own domain, and keep other wizards' domains secret.

Yes, we agree it makes perfect sense too =) Don't know if it's possible though, but it worths a shot.

So I think the cost should be increased, but not as much

Ok, it should be made moddable as well then...

Also some mods use units of level 0 and higher than 4, how does your change work with them?

Level 0 (or lower, if variable is actually signed - didn't check if level 0xFF equals 255 or -1) - x1.0
Level 5 and everything higher works as level 4 (x2.0)

By the way, variety of levels can be a problem for customization of multipliers. What's the reasonable highest level we should take into consideration?

(Btw it would be nice if you can modify the editor to allow creating units of other levels than 1-4 without additional tools*, and display these units in the editor when mapmaking.)

One more bug to fix =) Haven't done anything with mapmaking part of the editor yet though, so I don't know how problematic it could be.

I'd prefer to change the formula even more, so XP gained depends on the target level exponentially instead of linearly

As you mentioned later, it will lead to basically overriding the whole current level-up system. Even though it's not that difficult, I'm not sure it's really needed. We'll think about possible advantages of your suggestion and decide then.

Does the Secret sphere still exist?

Yes. Technically, Common was created from the None sphere.

I think it should be 50%.

It was somewhen in development cycle, but after testing and more consideration we had lowered it even more.

That's great, I always wanted such change. How does it impact the movement costs of roads, forests, mountains etc. on these terrains?

Roads are 3 MP/hex always, so do structures and rubble (whatever it is =)). Forests, hills and mountains on snow/ice/swamp cost 2 MP/hex more than the same objects on grass or any 'normal' terrain.

For example you can increase the movement cost of Desert and Beach, and create a Sand Wanderer ability that removes this penalty. Something similar can be done with Wasteland.

Balancing-wise, sand or wasteland races don't need such a push-up feature (while for slow frostlings, on the other hand, it is fitting really nice). So implementing this feature for these terrains is under a big question.

No Forestry: 8 MP/Dense Vegetation, 6 MP/Vegetation
Forestry I: 6 MP/Dense Vegetataion, 5 MP/Vegetation

I think it's too many levels

Giving such abilities different bonus at different levels would be an incredible pain in the ass. -1 MP/level is a flexible and easy (well, relatively =)) approach, that's why it was chosen. Weird levels of Mountaineering look weird for some time, but it's not that bad when you are used to it =)

Applying Forestry to simple vegetations and Mountaineering to hills make sense, I think we'll do it.

doesn't it overpower the Cosmos wizards compared to specialists?

In RMG maps there are no Cosmos nodes, so at least there it's justified. Multiplier can be probably made editable, though, to be honest, I don't think it's such a big deal.

Why didn't you just make it depend on the current total production?

Point was to give production races relatively bigger merchandise bonus, so their villages could be more useful when not producing stuff (compared to races with 'passive' bonuses, production races sucked in this department).

I think it's way too much for custom maps, but maybe something like 4 would be good...

It's planned to be made editable. There are two options that make sense: allow forest on crops only (as it was previously) and set radius if first option is disabled.

If you could only fix the boat bug too... (and other movement related problems that allow some exploits)

What's the boat bug and what are these exploits?

Remove the map unexploring effect (it's just stupid IMO)

Can't agree with you here, but if there's an easy way to toggle this in mod settings - why not.

Units with Night Vision shouldn't have reduced visual range.

That's actually a very nice idea. At least they should see in this magic darkness a bit (1 hex) better than other units. We'll think this over.

All battles in the area of effect should have the Unholy Darkness spell active

Interesting idea, though completely impossible one.

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

I find it weird that moving on road cannot be faster than the highest level of movement on other terrains

Well, you can always remove these highest levels from units in a mod =) And, by the way, in classic SM underground races have already had the same 3 MP/hex speed on the underground dirt. So we didn't actually invent this one =)

where would the patch store its registry key, if not in Triumph Studio branch?

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Triumph Studios\Age of Wonders Shadow Magic\MP ++
Don't know why you need to access it directly though =)

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 05-04-2011 @ 01:43 PM).]

What's the boat bug and what are these exploits?

Boat bug - you select a boat with land units in it, set the movement path to a water hex, select a land unit in the boat by right-clicking on its movement button, and the game crashes (in my tests the crash happens after you do it twice). The same happens with balloons over mountains etc.

Exploits - I meant situations like this one: Let's say you have a party of two units, one with Forestry and one without. You select that party, then you deselect the unit without Forestry and set a movement path through the forest using only the unit with Forestry. Then you deselect the party and select it again. The movement path is not updated, so you can move both units through the forest to a destination that normally only the unit with Forestry could reach this turn.

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 05-04-2011 @ 02:24 PM).]

Late thought, a way to increase standard abilities (attack/defense/resistance/damage/movement) on medal level up. I know work around on granting abilities exist, but if possible...

Also, I agree with the 3MP thing only being for roads. You're right about cave crawling, and now I think cave crawling is wrong. Perhaps underground should have a higher cost than 4MP. Not sure how this works with dirt and dirt should not cost more than grass. Now it's getting confusing in my head.

I do like the less levels on movement abilities, but having a general -1 per level is easy enough to work with, especially if it is easy to implement. Along the same lines with going to 3MP for some terrain movement levels. Really not a big deal, the modder (& patch team for that matter) can set it to their liking.

Lastly, I say +1 for wizard's seeing their own domain only, if it's possible. I would rather not see any domain than see all. I never liked knowing I was getting close to another wizard. I'd even lean toward no message. I totally could see myself moving one unit out of a stack to see if I enter a domain.

Hi there,

I just wanted to congratulate Jobe and Hellbrick for their efforts here. Some of the fixes and additional options are really great. I wouldn't of even considered being able to change crusader so it is a movement type ability for example. Also, I would think all players will appreciate not getting quest rewards to raze their own stuff!

By the way, if people are making "wish lists" here, then one of mine would be that after a unit morphs it has its xp reset to 0. I realize this is probably not important for you guys, but I thought I would toss it out there just in case.

Cheers!

Kirky

Surrender is disabled by default

Just that one change alone makes it worth downloading!

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Surrender is disabled by default-----------------------------------
Just that one change alone makes it worth downloading!

I agree... the battle for having a disable option for "surrendering" was one of my toughest forum battles. I'm glad we won !