Tip: Template for reducing late game MM hell

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by thejeff

It's not the few high level expensive artifacts that add to MM. It's churning out the dozens of cheap ones for your thugs & mages.

We should try and convince the developers to provide an automatic forging command the same as we have for magic site searching. This would definitely help.

I have found increasing the gem cost of gem generators prevents them from being forged as often because it requires more gems even with the hammers. The end result is instead of having 10 mages forging gem generators the higher cost means only 3 mages or less. In some cases other summon spells are viewed as more worthy because each gem generator has a longer period of time before it's paid its own cost.


In regards to SCs... such as the Tartarians and recruitable SCs, I believe new spells should be introduced to provide strategic strategies against them. For example I created one game where I created a summon spell where the creature generated horrormarks when struck... naturally not important against an army, but very important against SCs. Also I created a long range summon spell which was a summon specific for fighting SCs and then after its arrival a horror would appear. Another spell which can be introduced for handling SCs would be twisting the internal alchemy spell into a new spell so it only sends insanity instead of the decrease in aging. Another idea spell which comes to mind is creating a spell which uses cursed luck... currently it's almost impossible to even encounter a game which will have cursed luck. These will give armies a better chance against the heavy usage of SCs during late game.

[fantasma]

hammers allow for more forging which causes more MM. Removing them has two positive effects on managing:
1. Forging cheap stuff costs 67% more -> up to 40% less items
2. no need to find that mage with the hammer, anybody with the path can do it.

I think hammers introduce micro.

Reducing site frequency has a drastic influence, while reducing overall gem flow it makes finding specific gem types really unpredictable. I remember that game when - after searching all my provinces, 30 provs - I ended with a total of 1w! That was at 45%

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by fantasma

hammers allow for more forging which causes more MM. Removing them has two positive effects on managing:
1. Forging cheap stuff costs 67% more -> up to 40% less items
2. no need to find that mage with the hammer, anybody with the path can do it.

I think hammers introduce micro.

Reducing site frequency has a drastic influence, while reducing overall gem flow it makes finding specific gem types really unpredictable. I remember that game when - after searching all my provinces, 30 provs - I ended with a total of 1w! That was at 45%

Does anyone really not know where all their hammers are all the time? Does anyone really move them around all that much? I mostly give hammers to mages and set those mages to permanent forge duty, unless i have something special that needs making. And, surprise surprise, they're often the only mages not researching. I've never found forging to be annoying, and equipping items is quick and straightforward.

I find figuring out which paths a mage has is more micro, and that's important for things other than crafting. (Who can site search (manual or remote), who should go with the army, forging, ritual spells, etc...). It would help if, instead of having to rename all my casters A2W2D3 and the like there was a display on the overland commander view that listed all their paths, or it would come up on mouseover.

Finally, any removal of hammers would have to address how much this straightjackets nations into using nationally available magic types for items compared to default settings.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

I find figuring out which paths a mage has is more micro, and that's important for things other than crafting. (Who can site search (manual or remote), who should go with the army, forging, ritual spells, etc...). It would help if, instead of having to rename all my casters A2W2D3 and the like there was a display on the overland commander view that listed all their paths, or it would come up on mouseover.

You're aware that magic paths are listed on the F1 screen, right? It's not hard to spot the only H3 priest, or to find an A2 mage, etc.

-Max

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

You're aware that magic paths are listed on the F1 screen, right? It's not hard to spot the only H3 priest, or to find an A2 mage, etc.

-Max

I'm thinking more I'm looking at a territory with 20+ mages and i want to find all the ones with A4 or W3 or whatever. Figuring out which province he's in is not the hard part. And I want to be able to do it in the context of commander selection for forging/casting/moving, or army setup screen for spell scripting.

[Sombre]

All strategies are strategic!

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Sombre

All strategies are strategic!

When the number of strategies are few it's less strategic and more linear.

[Illuminated One]

Hmm, I think the tartarian thing would be quite easy to fix if there were some other nonunique SCs with about equal price and power.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

Hmm, I think the tartarian thing would be quite easy to fix if there were some other nonunique SCs with about equal price and power.

So, it seems to me that Tarts should be cheaper than other equivalent options because you need research in 3 schools (Thaum for GoR, Constr for boosters - often significant boosters) and gems of two types, so the current 27 (12d + 15n) pricetag is cheap because they're harder to rush. Plus you need the Chalice or GoH or other healing options.

A straight-up SC without GoR that is equivalent should probably cost more on the order of 40-50 gems. A slightly weaker but less hassle SC could cost around 30-35 gems, and could help counter the rush to tartarians (or encourage runs to it solely because its less hassle).

[Micah]

You can click on commanders from the F1 screen and it will select them and go to their province, so I never bother right-clicking my guys to check for paths if there are a pile of them, I just hit F1 and click from there. Same for tracking down boosters or hammers, though the display IS pretty small...hammers and gate cleavers are petty indistinguishable, for example.