War of Magic: v1.2E change log

I'm playing me some Elemental this weekend.

I'm glad on the use of magic in combat now.  Will likely have to be adjusted to avoid use in unwinnable situations though.

Looking forward to trying these changes out.  Especially the revised citizen costs system.

I'm cautious that these changes to research time and studies being reduced in strength will result in even larger cities covering up the whole map. At this point I'm wondering why not simply reduce the research time in half, and double the citizen cost for studies. Or maybe even triple it. That will definitely prevent city sprawl from going out of control, and keep lost libraries and champions giving tech research remotely interesting to find.

In addition, the limit of the unlimited buildings will result in it being very hard to specialize cities. Instead of having a single city with all the arcane labs, and another with studies, and a third with workshops, you'll end up with 3 cities that are largely the same because you have so much population you can't use in the "specialized" city. Keep in mind not everyone puts much points in the improvement tech tree that unlocks new city buildings.

To prevent very tedious mini-city micro spam with level 1 cities with 1 study, 1 lab and 1 workshop, may I suggest that a level 1 city consumes 1 food? And that this food cost is removed once the city hits level 3 (or not at all). This willl also off-set the free 5 population you get from founding a new city with the (now even cheaper) pioneer.

Also, may I suggest that the Empire "monument" building is similarly limited like studies, labs and workshops?

I don't understand the tax change. What's important is not how many people produce how much gold, but how much food you use to produce the gold. With a solution like the one described in the notes, you are penalizing high level cities in favor of smaller cities. Or is the diminishing returns on taxes global, and not on a city level? If that is the case, you must take into consideration the city level up bonuses, and the many gildar-boosting buildings available. This can easily produce a situation where a larger population results in a smaller tax income.

The update is up, but it's showing up as 1.2d in Impulse.

In the 1.2d version on the servers, the unlimited buildings cost 1 citizen and you can build them infinitely, just like before. Must be some mistake somewhere.

still getting population bugs - skyrocketing builidng costs

Froggy I really much wish you'd rather work on the AI for Fallen Enchantress.... Just sayin

He's already said it's pointless to write AI for a game that's so far from completion. Why write great AI and then have it all go to waste, because the game changes?

I only hope he'll have enough time before release when it IS ready to be written.

The number of resource producing improvements should be set a lot higher for higher level cities than just +1 per level.  Having the number too low will just result in city spam, whereas having a good number will make higher level cities worth chasing.  You could even dump the citizen system like Sethai suggests and just have a certain well-balanced limit on resource producing improvements for a city of a given level.

Best regards,
Steven.

I'm not noticing the building limit as your describing Frogboy. I did notice a level 1 city could only build 4 non-housing buildings but I wasn't limited to 1 lab, 1 study and 1 workshop.

I whole heartedly support the tax change. After 100 or so turns in the older system, I would be rich beyond my dreams. I'm actually having to wait to build things so my maintenance would be too high.

Studies still take 4 turns to build. Might i suggest making studies, labs and workshops all take 3 turns?

Edit: Forgot to mention, there is a lot more interesting stuff spawning in better places in the world. I found horses, 2x metal, 2x oasis, and 3 shards (all but air) fairly close to the start (but far enough away i that it made since for me to plop another city to collect some of these.

What about having a max of 1/2/4/8/16 of each study/lab/workshop etc. in Level 1/2/3/4/5?  That would give the player a real incentive to getting fewer, higher level cities, and a better use of exponential numbers than the exponential citizen cost system ever was.

Best regards,
Steven.

- Population bug hasn't been fixed. Merchant in second city costs 56 population.

- Pathing still through trees. (Will this ever be fixed???)

- Can still spam studies. Although $$$ cost is now a disincentive to go overboard.

- Hate that tech is still what this game is ALL about.

- Pioneer looks the same to me.

+ Like the money changes. Harder to expand.

The following is a bit of a rant about the process...

Can you please let us know what is still broken in the changelog - like a TODO bug list. Surely any sort of internal testing would have seen that the population bug was still a game-breaker. And I guess there are other bugs as well you are aware of that will need addressing. Not sure what you gain in the beta process by keeping this to yourself.

It would be really really cool if at the top of the change log you said something like: "Please beta-test this version only building a single city. Population mechanic has been changed but there is a residual bug when buildings are added to subsequent cities. Don't expect to get too far into the game in this beta version but the feedback we are looking for is ..."

If you could communicate what you want tested then our expectations would not be that we are going to be able to play a game. Instead we can focus on what you want us to focus on without the frustration of 'discovering' stuff that you must know is badly broken before you upload.

I know the argument is that if we decide to participate in the beta testing we get what we get - but come-on. This game really hasn't been polished enough to have ever really left a beta testing phase.

I'll end my rant now and return to playing Age of Wonders until the next version is released.

This game has so much potential. So frustrating it just can't quite ever hit the sweet spot.

It's hard to believe that 1.2d is = 1.2e when about half of the changes in "e" is in the "d" version.

The population bugs alone right now make the game unplayable.  Probably needs a hotfix over the weekend for anything meaningful to be done from this.

Looks like the server datablob wasn't updated. In betas you download a data.zip every time you start the game. That data.zip is still on 1.2c, judging by the changes that aren't present.

But even with the proper data.zip, the fact remains that population is still messed up in the .exe, being cloned between cities.

Just a suggestion (haven't played Elemental recently), but perhaps cities aqcuired through the Dynasties system shouldn't count for the prestige penalty.  I mean, if you're going for a couple big cities, and then an allied sovreign dies and you inherit their empire, it seems like you should be rewarded, not punished.

hey thanks stardock as always your dedication to your fans and supporting the game  is the whole reasion why I got war of magic in this first place, I am going to try my first game with this beta patch installed today.

Meh i haven't touched EWOM in a few months. Guess i'll dust it off and give it a go with the newest beta.

Err, downloading this beta to enjoy would be a huge mistake. Get the non-beta, or wait for 1.3 to be released as non-beta.

Nah i know the deal.. ill post my crashdumps, bugs etc its all good. (tbh the point is more to see if the various changes make any difference in my fun factor.. heck im updating from 1.16 or something lol)

 After game edit:

Okay so.. I place my capital.. pump out a study a beacon of hope and a farm. Weak magic based sov so i turtle up in town. No materials to build any kind of troops and proceed to die to the first bandit who attacked my capital.(i kept thinking "can't I at least build a scout troop that doesnt need material" lol, ill have to check out the troop editor again to see if its possible to design a troop that takes 0 material)

btw a lvl 1 city can still have more than one study so somethings not right either in the notes or the update.

You can't turtle up right away, you need to scout around for "misplaced wares" and stuff to get materials.

My Impulse is still showing version 1.2a. Is there a way to force update to 1.2d(or 1.2e)?

EDIT: The option in the Impulse menu to check for updates doesn't work, or the one on the splash screen for Elemental itself.

alexander, in impulse you have to set the show beta in the blue button, THEn check for updates

harpo