War of Magic: v1.3
With Summer here it is time to get v1.3 of War of Magic out the door and start thinking about v1.4. I had to push some of the things I wanted to do in v1.3 (notably rewriting the tactical AI) into v1.4 as I ended up spending a lot more time than anticipating improving the overall “feel” of the game.
With v1.2F, I tweaked the economics further and made a few AI changes that I think should result in greater challenge as well as a tighter experience. Overall, I’m feeling much better about how the game plays even if I’m not happy with other parts of the game (and I’ve yet to make a game I’m happy with but that’s a different topic).
Starting this month and into the Fall I’ll be focusing my efforts on the AI for Fallen Enchantress. So it’ll be what I learn in Fallen Enchantress that goes into v1.4.
Fallen Enchantress will be the biggest challenge of my AI career as I believe (perhaps incorrectly as I’m biased) the ability of the AI monsters and AI players to make intelligent use of their special abilities in battle will be crucial to the overall enjoyment of the game. So a great deal of my time will be spent having the AI learn to not just cast spells but to treat their abilities and magical powers as a cohesive whole – to build micro strategies with them.
In all likelihood, the first beta of Fallen Enchantress will hit before War of Magic v1.4 goes into beta so we’ll have a better idea where players want me to focus my efforts at that point since virtually everyone who got War of Magic will be getting Fallen Enchantress for free anyway.
The Lore of the World
War of Magic didn’t have the opportunity to express the considerable lore of the world. There are so many different creatures and types of beings in the world of Elemental that we are hoping will start to be shown in Fallen Enchantress.
If you’re read the book, Elemental: Destiny's Embers, you get an idea of some of the complex politics of the world, particularly amongst the Kingdoms of Men. Fallen Enchantress will let us explore the complexities of the Empires of the so-called “Fallen” as well as give players a better understanding of the much harsher conditions that exist in the eastern lands where the Fallen survive.
In War of Magic, the maps took place in the west where the lands were barren and brigands and darklings may have roamed the landscape. But the west was a paradise compared to what the Fallen were dealing with in the East.
Posted this in the changelog thread, but I'll re-post here.
Just played the first 200 turns in a game, some thoughts
- Simultaneous damage makes it very hard to fight higher difficulty AI. This is good. Champions, no matter how well-geared, can no longer ride through an army without breaking a sweat.
- The new defensive modifiers in a city are silly and should be removed. A fence doesn't give a unit +10% defense. Let the defensive modifiers come from buildings that give real city walls.
- The AI was great at attacking, and quite hostile at hard. It sent large armies to attack, instead of 1 or 2 units. The champions I saw were not terribly geared. Still, the AI missed many opportunities. In fact, I had my border town, against an AI I was at war with, completely empty except 2 ungeared champions for 100 turns and the AI did not march a single unit in. Granted, I don't know what his other borders looked like!
- The new tax thing helps, and I really like it because you don't swim in money any more. I think it should be given further diminishing returns, because there are so many ways to boost gildar, but now the things you can spend them on are quite limited. At the end of 200 turns, with 3 built cities and 1 captured, I had around 2000 gildar while having no materials (maxed workshops + found a clay mine). (edit: I equipped no heroes though, I could have used the gold for that).
- Population and materials were my main limits, not gildar. After I researched houses and villas, I never ever had a population problem because I got more population from having a level 4 city, than I could spend on the actual city due to building limits!
- Where, where, where is the magic? Gone completely! I used inspiration for prestige, and nature's bounty for food. That must surely be the most boring use of magic ever in any game of all time period. More summon spells, more combat spells! BUT I like the new longer research times for high level spells. It's much more even compared to your technology advancement.
- This is EASILY the best version of E:wom yet.
- Where is the adventuring content?! Despite spawning in an area close to much AI, I rarely if ever saw a goodiehut. My research into adventuring spawned one single "notable location level 2" in my entire kingdom.
Even though I kinda put in a critical post today on what I feel is still incomplete, you have improved things so far, to the point of respectability.
That said, the AI's ability to use their abilities, in both tactical and quick battles, will be crucial. If the rest of FE reaches the promise that has been shown so far, the AI work will make or break this game. I have no idea how you'll be able to do this without some scripting though, and I know how much you hate scripting.
As we progress through the alphabeta phases, the game is becoming more unstable for me.
I'm patient, and I really want to enjoy this game - eventually. My drivers are all up-to-date, so I'll just wait.
Keep up the good work.
-.-
I agree, the game needs more tactical spells and an AI that is not afraid to use them.
Tactical spells such as;
01. Summon Worg Pride, Summon Giant Spiders and Summon Wolf Pack where the summoned creatures would last for 1+ 1 turn per caster level. 02. Break Summons, Control Summons, Dispel Summoned Creatures03. Flood Lands - makes 25% of the tiles impassible to those wearing plate armor.04. Forest Fire - sets wooded tiles aflame, causing damage to any that enter them05. More powerful heal spells06. Warp Wood - to reduce the accuracy of bow wielding units.07. Downpour - to reduce line of site to 2 tiles.08. Fear - effective against untrained units, less effective against Elite units and high level champions. I.e. Though a 1st level champion might be affected by a fear spell. An elite combat unit or 4th level champion would be immune to fear.
The game could be improved further if some AIs pursued an archer or magic focused battle strategy.
i.e. 50% Alterian Sovereign pursues Archer Battle Strategy - research archery techs, build archer units, forge magical bows, etc. Imagine, an opponent army that shoots arrows at your men.
i.e. 50% Alterian Sovereign pursues Magic Focused Strategy by recruiting champions and allowing them to channel magic too. Imagine, an opponent army with two magic casters!
i.e. 50% Wraiths follow a summoned creatures strategy.
I agree that this is easily the best version of War of Magic and many of the game elements are meshing nicely.
Here are thoughts on Tactical combat (which I see as still a major problem with the game).
I'm enjoying the pace of the game and other than keeping the housing levels up in cities, I'm no longer feeling like I need to spam building. This is particularly enjoyable because it makes you consider WHEN to place building or to try and save money.
The AI looks as though it still spams a few too many cities because now the real goal is to get as many cities to level 3 so you can build markets.
Well done Brad with this version.
Thank you for the update. However, my main concerns are still not being addressed. As I brought up in this thread, https://forums.elementalgame.com/409938
I still don't know what the point of WoM is versus FE. This latest journal continues to discuss improvements to WoM, and also talks about how...
This shows a real lack of long term vision for the entire franchise. Why oh why are we still talking about and working on WoM AT ALL if there is no long term, concrete plan to make it a truly different game than FE? Why do we WANT to even consider making it a different game? Why not just make one great game, with FE being a direct evolution of WoM instead of this weird parallel development we are seeing.
I really like what we have seen so far of FE, and I really appreciate all the work Brad and others are doing on WoM. However, I still don't understand what is being done. Right now, unless I see something that convinces me that WoM will be a worthwhile game on its own compared to FE, I would rather see all resources devoted to making FE awesome, and then the next expansion or whatever can build on that. I just don't see the point of continuing to mess with WoM instead of just focusing on FE.
Either way, thanks to everyone involved for continuing all the hard work!
I would agree with you completely. I actually brought this up in another post where Derek said that FE was all about bringing the right units to battle and using abilities. Since bringing the right units to battle is a strategic choice that means using abilities right will define tactical battles, and it sounds like something hard to make a good AI for. I wish you luck!
I also posted a similar comment in the changelog thread.
The game is soooooo much better now that this really needs to be the focus for 1.4. Do that and EWOM will be a really good game, imho.
Edwin99's list would be a great start!
Yes, the tactical combat remains broken without hope of recovery. With the weakest weapons being twice as strong as the base hit points, and the most powerful 10 times as strong, the game has entered a realm of silliness that makes it unplayable.
The change to hit points is enough to destroy the game considering the importance the military aspect can have. If WoM is to actually retain any interest once FE is released, the combat system needs rethinking from the ground up. As it is, it's just not working,
Yeah I'm with you. If he's now going to work on FE... then when FE is in beta go back to work on WoM again when in theory FE is in beta and should need it's AI programmer the most? For what? Who is really going to be playing WoM once FE is out?
I don't get it. But then it's Stardock, sometimes they'll do things that just don't make sense.
well I for one would prefer Frogboy to work on FE's AI. It would be nice if some improvements were made in TCAI before beta so we can hold onto our hopes and dreams.
I suppose it might come down to which AI he would be working with. It might be something that can be applied to both games (such as tactical) if the parts its using aren't going to work much differently. Auto resolve or creature AI might be good examples if the related combat elements are compatible and locked in form. Pathing or development styles for the civilizations are also options that may be universally applied to both games.
I personally am not playing Elemental until FE comes out. So maybe that biases me to wanting froggy to put his efforts toward the AI in fallen enchantress. But that's where I'd much rather see his efforts going. In fact I would much prefer if all available talent was focused there. Sorry but WoM is beating a dead horse IMO. FE is where the magic is. Figuratively and literally
I agree with this post.
This behaviour is a bit baffling to me, too. Despite all the announcements and public amends, Stardock still seems to be underestimating the challenge they're facing. I'd daresay they're showing again a lack of humility, and this is not a good sign.
EWOM was beyond saving, as the apathetic response to all these updates prove. The forums are hardly even "populated" anymore. Starting almost from scratch with FE *was* the right move, but spreading the available resources too thin on multiple fronts and questionable goals won't help produce ONE product gamers will relate too. I hope I'm wrong, but if this trend continues, I won't be surprised if FE ends up being another failure, with people complaining left and right about AI issues and other shortcomings (I'll say it again: I hope I'm wrong).
Just my 2 cents.
Frogboy, are you going to have a poll of some sort regarding 1.4? I remember you saying that there would only be a 1.4 if people specifically asked for it.
I like the idea in general about divergent paths for WoM and FE. But, yea, I don't think there is enough resources to make WoM really good. But, also, you really can't work on teh AI until you have most of the game finished, so Brad working on WoM now really doesn't take any resources away from FE. I'm sure that Brad has everyone working on FE that needs to be right now. So, why not make WoM better. I still have hope for WoM. And if they are removing some features that WoM has in FE, then WoM still has relevance. I want to see 1.3 and 1.4, and I want to see what WoM was meant to be.
I myself have not been particularly active as of late, spending more time with Civ IV and FfH; but I do read the dev journals as they come down, and I'll be interested to see how E:WoM and E:FE finally end up.
I suspect that the reason Stardock continue to work on E:WoM is a strong desire to do good by their customers and to ensure that E:WoM does not stick forever on the studio as their "big flop". I can definitely understand that sentiment, not everyone gets an opportunity to work on and improve against their mistakes but it's a fantastic experience if you can make it finally work.
Sometimes, a game cannot be everything to everyone, and there may even be a limit to how many different system a game can have in it before it becomes more work than fun to play. There's definitely a possible future where the three elemental games all focus on different aspects of what it mean to be a Fantasy 4x game. I don't know if that's where we're headed with the E: games, or if there's some other future out there for it, but it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I agree. There is room for two distinct games IMHO. I'll give this new beta a spin this weekend.
This is Brad's baby and I want to see it grow up and become the game it was meant to be.
In the end, I want to see three great games (or more hopefully) in the Elemental universe.
Stardock really can't win though. If they give up on E:WOM people will bitch and complain. If they keep trying to improve it, people will bitch and complain. Some people are way too harsh.
Anyway, keep up the good work Brad. You are doing the right thing.
Sorry guys.. where i found list of the changelog for this "F" version ??
I definitely favor WoM continuing to be improved as much as possible----as whatever problems are discerned with it are less likely to become an issue for FE come the launch of it.
I'm tempted to say that if there is an issue with significant feature slip among patches though, that perhaps it'd be better to do more frequent, smaller patch releases knocking out a thing or so at a time. I mean, if a significant thing or so slips from a patch meant from the start to only contain a significant thing or so, well, I'd say that's less likely to happen logistically...
Agreed thaat this is the best Version released so far - actuaklly enjoyed playing through it - despite small bugs "like the vanishing icon on cloth map" and the eventual super overpowered weapons > hp ratio. - add alot of spells and then we are cooking
Here - https://forums.elementalgame.com/410060
The changelog started out as "E" but had to be changed to "F" due to server isuues with the original posting.
I totally agree with both Lord Xia and Thormodr, but I think it really is a moot point.
Brad is going to keep working on EWOM until he's happy with it.
Anyone who thinks the game is a waste of time should just pretend it doen't exist & move on.
Those of us still interested in seeing it evolve will do what we can to help that process along.
wow, so this seems to be a polarizing issue.
I noticed yesterday when going through some xml, that about 1/3-1/2 of the old spells have been removed in the current version (since 1.09?). A lot of these were summons.
It would be nice if there was a patch to dramatically increase unit health (20 or so base). and to re-add in these spells (and maybe a handful more) so magic is viable.
I agree, re-add in the old spells, and convert the old summoning spells to tactical summoning spells (where the summoned creatures vanish after the battle).
I really miss the old imp that cast magic and the powerful summoned ice and fire elementals.
The changes I would like to see in 1.4; in rank order, are:
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