Era of Magic (EoMa) 4.6.2 - now on Ko-fi!

[Lord_bold]

Oh, cool! Thx for listening, I'm honored I could contribute to such a cool era!

Now one of my friends utterly despises me for the perfect drone removal lmao, he loved them. Too bad for him, he enjoyed destroying my ums with them. And my leader. And pretty much everything on his way.

I will try searching for the file with the lvl 2 golem summoning as soon as I can.
And happy new year!

[Atreides]

Oh, cool! Thx for listening, I'm honored I could contribute to such a cool era!

Now one of my friends utterly despises me for the perfect drone removal lmao, he loved them. Too bad for him, he enjoyed destroying my ums with them. And my leader. And pretty much everything on his way.

I will try searching for the file with the lvl 2 golem summoning as soon as I can.
And happy new year!

Hahaha, I've got to try this dirty trick! Since the 1.14 EoMa still has it I know where to go... :- )

Oddly it reminds me of the flying reindeer turning into mounted zombie variations over chasms in the EoMa zombie survival scenario. Had to fix those too.

[Konrad2]

Hahaha, I've got to try this dirty trick! Since the 1.14 EoMa still has it I know where to go... :- )

Just so you know, you can always just downgrade your 1.16 EoMa, the relevant version is on the server as well.

[inferno8]

Era of Magic 3.5.2a is out!

This tiny patch fixes a single issue with the banishment attack granting combat xp for a newly created Dimensional Gate ...and that's all

Full changelog:

Code: Select all

## Version 3.5.2a
 ### Abilities
	* fixed a bug where a successful banishment attack granted combat xp to a newly created Dimensional Gate

[IPS]

As I could read from Bold's could comment, I understand that Kharos lv3 and lv4 units can't duel in 1vs1 many other same level units in the era. But Kharos have strong reasons to be balanced that way and is that they have access to very strong auras, healing power and tons of defensive bonuses (for example Hoplite aura)

Kharos is one of the 2 factions in era of magic (appart of dark blood aliance) that has access to heal+12 aura which if well used in 6 tiles, it's a total of 72 healing a single turn! (instead of 48 from healing+8). But unlike of Dark-Blood that this unit needs to be lv4 and a lot of more XP to reach that level, kharos can bring heal+12 a lot earlier in survivals and in long-term games much earlier.

But if we consider all auras correctly used (Hoplite aura, heal+12 , leadership auras, ILLUMINATES and more!) Kharos is tactically a strong faction; which even has access to berserk unit that has a level cap of lv2 and can be easily boosted by leadership/hoplite (also illuminates if fireswordsman), which basically can cut any opposing unit in the right situation !!

My answer to all this situation regards lv3 and lv4 unit is viewing more carefully their prices and realize how fair is their actual price so more epic battles can be re-balanced depending how much you are paying for a certain strategy.


Also, off-topic, most of my tests were at lv1-lv2 units because first of all balance in low level units is most important as everything else is defined by how strong/efficient are their first level units and second, that testing more epic units fight againist AI is not a good criteria in how to balance units (just in the example of the in ruins city, which basically , a lv4 jinn is easily destroyed because poor positioning from AI ).

And yep, I'm coming back soon in reviewing some more details in various add-ons in wesnoth, as I was very busy (and sick) during end of december until end of January.

[IPS]

First test gameplay in Era of Magic Masters and Slaves.

This time I got Tharis as random, and as I predicted, Matiarch of Emptyness is vital for Tharis gameplay and their high cost of 60g is very justified. I realized that additionally she's an effective counter of Sky Kingdom's Um unit in melee dueling.

Tharis gameplay is really smooth when you get familiarizated to them, my only misstake was not getting earlier Great Hunters for slow instead of witches, but still, witches are really nice for sustain , specially if conbined with Matriarc of Empty (even barbarian's hatchets are more of a problem than Lv3 Sky Kingdoms being nulified with 70% resistance aura).

Was difficult to myself to sometimes remember that Empthyness aura may work againist yourself when using Warlocks and Dark observers, reason why few of my plans did not work that well at all x'D

Dark General high cost of 58g showed to be worth if combined with the right lv2 units.

Not much to say, I didn't see any problem with pricing in Tharis, only thing is that lv1 Dark Overserver level up a bit too quickly to Lv2 which I would highly recommend to nerf a bit.

Lastly, Dark Slayer being 5-5 but combined with skirmisher and no-counter-attack is strong enough, and that Blade Master is most likely one of best lv3 units in the era! but I did not recruit any and instead leveled some dark slayers into this lv3.

Dark Observer
- XP from 43 to 49
Might be 34 XP at 70% modifier which is two lv2 kills and surviving 1 round in a lv2 duel.

Storm Sphere
Dark Observer quick leveling up showed that Storm Sphere is not that worthy at all, will decrease pricing.
- Price from 34g to 33g
Many berserkers, lv2/lv3 mages that can easily counter this unit. But reasson I don't decrease to 32g is because maybe in any altered gamerule set this unit could be recruited and fight againist lv1 units which in this case Storm Sphere is pretty OP

Random map replay 20220202-065043.gz

Tharis in Era of Magic Master and Slave test in huge random map.

(94.77 KiB) Downloaded 45 times

[IPS]

This is another game, but me playing as Sky Kingdom, will comment most notable facts I realized in that test game.

Firstly, I tought Sky Kingdom was being overpriced but for my surprise, it's not overpriced even IF some units ARE expensive. Master of Air and Cosmic Eyes are very worth their price, as you can see in my skirmish missions in bottom which were the real master piece of that match. I had no problems dealing against Kharos faction, but I made the misstake of leaving too many villages to dwarf AI before killing Kharos at the point at leaving the game unfinished but most likely won.

Second I realized is that Sky Kingdom units have certain bugs about summoning lol ... like Master of Air summoning Air Avatar by only 16g which is REALLY gamebreaking bug !!! even if it's actually a misstake that Master of Air can of summon air avatars I would like to implement an option for Sky Kingdom master to summon overpriced lv2 avatars to permit more possible strategies. Will mention initial prices for this suggestion.

Fire Master cannot of Summon actually... even if I tried to. Did not test with Master of Water BUT it might not be complicated to make it work whatever its status is.

I really loved the actual pricing of Sky Kingdom units, Mystical warriors being THAT CHEAP while everything else is expensive makes everything work fine. Additionally, I love the idea of Mystic warrior being that cheap but too hard to lv3 I loved really lot that detail.

I got trolled several times because of Silver Warrior teleport and once to fire-breath from mechanical dragon which costed me a cosmic eye XD

Lastly, I have an HUGE complaint about HOW UNDERPRICED are Flying fortress actually !!! at the point it's pretty much unfair !! at a point that I would even lower a bit its stats a bit.

So my final conclusion is the following changes to gameplay of summon and flying fortress rebalance.

Cannoner is underpriced as well, they made a lot of havoc too, too movible and too cheap skirmish unit which I will increase their price.


Sky Kingdom

Master of Air
Summoning rebalancing, as it's really broken for Master & Slave era.
- Fix their Summoning skill to pay 16g for lv1 air elementa instead of lv2 Air Avatar
- NEW SUMMONING OPTION: Air Avatar for 42g (6g more than buying it with summoners faction)
This will lead Sky Kingdom to have more options in large/huge maps and more viable strategies for Sky Kingdom gameplay.

Master of Fire
- Fix their summoning, so they can now summon fire elementals and fire avatars !!
- Fire Elemental summoning for a price of 17g (1g less than from keeps) as they boost hidden-face damage. Also allowing sky kingdom have access to fire magical melee unit and with different properties.
- NEW SUMMONING OPTION: Fire Avatar for 42g (7g more than if buying it from keep if summoner player).
Having the option to summon in the middle of the fight such unit is powerful enough, but player have to pay a strong fee for this.

Master of Water
- If issue, fix summoning menu for this unit !
- Water Elemental summoning for a price of 14g (1 less than from keeps).
- NEW SUMMONING OPTION: Water Avatar for 44g (12g more tha from keeps if summoner side).
Being capable to quickly summon another healer +8 in middle of the fight is highly powerful if well used. Also Hydromancer is honestly a better unit than Water elemental is.

This is potentially a important bug fix and a buff to Sky Kingdom army. Will consider reviewing more carefully all summoning menues in a next release of EoMa.


RuneMasters
I consider that this time, a very powerful and underrated unit must be nerfed for the good of everything for strong reassons.

Flying Fortress
It's actually a very movible heavy unit with flying advantages that it's even painful to slow because of having first strike at both melee and ranged... this unit will be slightly nerfed and repriced a lot higher as dealing againist it is not fun at all, specially considering the hard-landing and extra lv0 unit deployed after the unit is destroyed!
- Machine-gun (melee) damage from 16-1 to 15-1
- Movement from 7 to 6 (will now lose 1 movement in lv3)
- Cannon attack will no longer have +first-strike (it's too abusive dealing a total of 40 Dmg before opponent's 2nd strike)
- Price from 56g to 62g
Better various small nerfs in various aspects instead of a larger nerf to a single aspect of the unit.

Dwarvish Cannonneer
- Price from 30g to 32g

Sky Kingdom.gz

(83.5 KiB) Downloaded 51 times

[inferno8]

Hello IPS and thanks for the feedback!

Sky Kingdom units have certain bugs about summoning lol ... like Master of Air summoning Air Avatar

This is really weird. I've just checked the code and that unit can summon Air Elementals only (so everything is fine). See for yourself:
https://github.com/inferno8/wesnoth-Era ... ir.cfg#L26
But on the other hand your observations regarding Master of Fire were correct. There was a bug preventing him from summoning Fire Elementals. I fixed it yesterday but haven't released the new version yet, so if you have any other balancing suggestions, feel free to post them here. In the meantime I still need to rename all unit files to match their names and it may take some time before I release the patch.

[IPS]

Yup, there will be a 3rd and last testing of Slaves & Master version of the era before this update, concerning Kharos testing and how powerful/balanced may be Golden warrior and Silver warriors teleport skill and viewing how correctly priced are them.

Teleport is super hard to balance, as it depends in map village density, map size and various other factors, BUT will consider their balancing in base of a standarized 50x50 map, meaning that all silver , golden and master of sun might be overpriced in small maps and expecting them to be quite situational and optional (as for smaller maps, shielders and their advancements will shine more) - leaving situational teleport skill in underpriced margin may be game-breaking if right situations are present.

And will edit this post to leave my comments about kharos testing.


Regards Kharos
I've realized some issues regards Masters and Slaves version of the era. Some units are highly overpriced because their pricing is COUNTING with the support of lv1 units (Bishop's lv2 mostly). Being the same reason why in Tharis test I avoid lv2 leadership but instead I purchase directly the lv3 version for real boosting of lv2.

Secondly, in a map of size 60 x 55 , white warrior / golden warrior are fairly decent and not that much overpowered, but problem in my case is that my illuminates boosting with Mistress of Light is not working that powerful as spected because of the pressence of fearless trait which will not boost in night time units that were already 0% ToD attack damages. Reason why Misstress of Light is being overpriced because of a situational in other units.

Expected Elemental archer being underpriced, but for my surprise isn't. Even if it's possible to combine slow and berserk, to make highest profit of that is harder than I expected so I will leave unchanged for now elemental archers and their advancements.

But it's a fact that Kharos is facing some problems of pricement in Masters and Slaves gameplay as certain units have their actual price considering the support of lv1.

So, certain units have real reassons to be repriced cheaper in Kharos.

Only problem of Kharos playing in Era of Masters & Slaves is that you will go absurdly fine or already lost the match depending how good you were doing the last several turns ;D (Yup, missing 5 of 7 times with magical ... tilts) , and it's quite hard to determinate judging in actual situation. I reloaded like several times and this was my 2nd game after learn of some misstakes on my first game. But saw that Kharos had pricement problems.

And plague over units that die over villages?! yup, that's a super HARD COUNTER for silver and gold warrios, thing that by default it shouldn't occur !!!

Cyclops plague must be reviewed and not work over units in villages ! Using another plague skill for Zombie survival but in mainline that plague is BROKEN.

Mistress of Light
- Price from 68g to 63g

Hoplite
- Price from 34g to 32g
Slow support compared to their teleporting peers.

Avenger
- Price from 32 go 31g

Bishop
- Price from 40g to 38g

Heavy Cavalry
- Price from 34g to 32g

Solar Master
- No longer Available as leader in Master and Slaves era.
Strong reassons, in the right hands his teleport is very abusable. I highly recommend removing teleport leaders in Masters and Slaves.


Miscelanous things
There are things that might consider to help certain units a bit , specially for a better balance for masters and Slaves.

Master of Darkness
- Scyche attack getting a bonus in +first-strike
This would make that dealing againist this unit be a bit more annoying, specially that 19-3 is low for lv4 standards. But the unit enjoys of many other more excentric bonuses.

All Lv3 leaders in EoMa Master and Slaves
- Heroic trait as bonus.
Adding an Heroic trait over all lv3 starting heroes, this would make starting leader units be better than any recruited unit instead of the opposite in case of not picking lv4 as leader unit.

All Lv4 leaders
- Add resilient trait.
This is to also decrease any potential disadventage generated because of starting traits in their lv3 peers.

Will later in soon, consider a nerf of heroic trait to certain starting lv3 units , but unit re-pricing is more impactful in balance than starting leader unless if we're playing in a very very very small map.

Disclaimer:
- Units with too many strikes having +1 damages in their attacks could be gamebreaking (Master of Air, Master of Fire, Pacificator, etc)
- These units would have the combo of Strong, Resilient, Quick & Inteligent combination instead.
- Sky Guardian being an exception, would have Dexterious instead of Strong.

Kharos Testing

Kharos Test.gz

(59.39 KiB) Downloaded 43 times

[inferno8]

All Lv3 leaders in EoMa Master and Slaves
- Heroic trait as bonus.

What do you mean by the 'heroic' trait? And what does it do exactly? From what I can tell, it's not part of the default era nor Ageless.

[Lord-Knightmare]

All Lv3 leaders in EoMa Master and Slaves
- Heroic trait as bonus.

What do you mean by the 'heroic' trait? And what does it do exactly? From what I can tell, it's not part of the default era nor Ageless.

It's in WC, basically...
heroic = quick + strong + resilient + intelligent

[inferno8]

All Lv3 leaders in EoMa Master and Slaves
- Heroic trait as bonus.

What do you mean by the 'heroic' trait? And what does it do exactly? From what I can tell, it's not part of the default era nor Ageless.

It's in WC, basically...
heroic = quick + strong + resilient + intelligent

Oh, I see. Thanks!

Btw, I want to announce that at some point I am going to change IDs of some EoMa units to match their actual names. For example EoMa_Mage_of_Fire -> EoMa_Pyromancer This may seem like a small, cosmetic change, but it will certainly break all third-party add-ons relying on EoMa units. But fear not: once I make that change, I'll post a list of all altered IDs.

[IPS]

All Lv3 leaders in EoMa Master and Slaves
- Heroic trait as bonus.

What do you mean by the 'heroic' trait? And what does it do exactly? From what I can tell, it's not part of the default era nor Ageless.

It's in WC, basically...
heroic = quick + strong + resilient + intelligent

In overall in mainline from where it comes. And I think heroic trait also affects ranged damage too, I think it includes dexterious too if I'm right.

But in general, heroic is all good traits from mainline units but merged in one.

Considering the massive work of job in EoMA even unit ID changes, might hurry up my work and end in march instead of in April , then will leave a chance of other add-ons to get used to EoMa most recent changes. But overall rebalancing and polish specially in lv3 is still required as most of my job was done in lv0 - lv2 units because of being the most used.

[Lord-Knightmare]

You're correct. The actual one is
heroic = loyal + dexterous + strong + quick + resilient + intelligent

[inferno8]

Considering the massive work of job in EoMA even unit ID changes, might hurry up my work and end in march instead of in April , then will leave a chance of other add-ons to get used to EoMa most recent changes

There is no need to rush, so take your time. I just thought it would be good to make that id changes before I start working on new content, that's all. Besides, updating an add-on to make use of altered IDs can be quite easy to do. Basically you just find & replace old ids with the new ones based on the list. I've just generated it and it looks like 58 units will have their IDs changed.

But in general, heroic is all good traits from mainline units but merged in one.

Yeah, I already figured it out, and even implemented all of these ideas today - and everything works fine so far
Apart from 'heroic' trait there will be an 'elite' trait which is the combo of Strong + Resilient + Quick + Intelligent for units with high ranged attack strike count. These units are: Master of Air, Master of Fire, Master of Water, Pacificator, Matriarch of Darkness, Master Mage. If you want to include more, just tell me. Also, there will be a variant of that 'elite' trait with dexterous instead of strong (for Sky Guardian) just like you suggested.