After a brief lookaround, I see that one of the subtle little changes turrns out to really make a difference: You (and AI wizards) get the chance to research one random common spell from each of the spell colors you do not have books for.
That is quite an RNG roll! So a pure Sorcery wizard could, by chance, pick up Flame Strike, Web, Ghouls, and Heroism! By mid or late game, this would make less of a difference, but it certainly makes the early game less predictable all around.
Yeah, that thread you linked talks a bit about that and also about wasps being super annoying in the mod.
A mod to a mod that became a full-fledged game… balancing strategy games is so exhausting…
Spent a fair amount of time on this the past couple days, playing High Elves at Fair difficulty.
Two things I like a lot:
Tree of Knowledge is a much bigger deal to research and cast, which means that it is not a simple stop sign to halt high level troops until a certain (fairly early) date. It’s now a substantial investment and thus a decision, especially since your race might have access to mid-level troops that can already do a lot of damage. Furthermore, this design decision distinguishes races from each other more, in that it matters more how good your troops are at each development level. Gnolls, for example, are a bigger deal. And not just as a player choice – as an independent neighbor, they can cause trouble.
Nature now has a common level spell Nature’s Witness which not only scouts the area around a city, but also gives a bonus to troops trained in that city, depending on resources available around the city. Fun!
I also found the AI wizards did less crowding into my area, although that might just have been circumstances.
Slitherine doing their Home of Wargamers thing this morning. First bit of the presentation is about the new Master of Magic:
Are you able to watch it? If so would you be so kind as to share some highlights? I’m curious about the game, but I’m at the office and it’s not something I can watch at the moment.
Just for you <3
Just started watching it myself.
Starts at 21:00 of the video
Thanks, man!
It seems pretty close to the original, the bigger difference is the view on the normal strategy map
You can zoom in/out both in the strategic and in the battle map. They talk of some QoL tweaks and additions here and there, but it’s mostly a faithful remake.
This sounds just about perfect. Any talk of a release date?
“They are working from the Master of Magic wiki. It is very much a remake.”
Maybe my imagination, but stated, I thought, with a tone of defiance. Like he has ordered MuHa Games to do exactly that, and he wants no more discussion of the matter. Everything here says that this is the original game with better graphics and a more usable interface.
I hope they do better AI.
Looks like it goes to 55:00, and then there is a short video from the designer for about 4 more minutes.
I would have to think there would be some rule changes required to coincide with the switch to hexes.
I love the art style.
I’m happy they went with someone like the Thea developers instead of some unknown group to make the game.
Yes. But that will be a bit complicated. The player had available quite an array of unstoppable exploits, and once you discovered them, there really wasn’t much the AI opponents could do to stop you. So if the AI uses normal, non-exploitive tactics somewhat better, we may hardly notice the difference. And if they use the same exploits experienced human players use, most people would not find it much fun.
But yeah, I hope that they are working on that problem. Of course, Seravy already worked on that problem a lot and produced Caster of Magic. I suspect the tone of that intro comes from various people telling him that he ought to use some of Seravy’s insights. But maybe I am reading far too much into his statement.