Stack Experience

[mr.hackcrag]

Do other WoG players have any problem with winning maps on impossible difficulty where computer players get max experience for creature stacks? I hate to sound like I'm bragging, but I consider myself an expert homm player, but I've had a lot of trouble winning on impossible now. My army and hero are usually superior to any AI I face, but because their creatures levels are always maxed out, and mine are at very basic levels, I keep getting beat in battle.

I like a good challenge, but sometimes I don't even know where they get all the experience. For example, it was the middle of month two, and one guy I fought already had all his units at rank 9! There is nothing I could do to stop him. I like the some of the ideas about stack experience, but having a superior army or hero isn't even required any more. It's good that neutral stacks are harder, but the computer just quickly levels up a makeshift army and destroys me with better creature stats and abilities. For once, the impossible difficulty setting actually seems impossible.

[DaemianLucifer]

Stack XP does bring a whole new dimension to the game.Couple it with in game combat splitting,and youll really sweat in every battle with AI.I find it a very nice way of improving the difficulty,although I dare not try imposible now.

[Ya5MieL]

Theres always an option to make AI get same amount of experience as player. AI difficulty and AI stack exp. bonus dont have to be on same level.
(I agree that playing vs Impossible AI with Impossible stack exp setting is VERY challenging).

My favourite setting is playing vs Impossible AI, but with stack experience always set to normal.

[mr.hackcrag]

This is unrelated, but I didn't want to start a new thread. Is there any option to revert back to the thunderbird's original bolt effect? It does an insane amount of damage now.

I'm actually surprised people thought it should be stronger. At the original 10x, it was pretty much dealing double it's base damage, so it was almost as good as a death blow. And if you got good luck, then it was like dealing 4x it's base damage. Now if you factor in creature experience, it can even cast it twice in a row! The thunderbird seems more like a level 7 unit to me.

[mr.hackcrag]

While I'm complaining about stuff, I'm using a spell trait that changes many level 4 spells to level 5 such as town portal and armageddon, however, when I turn the eagle eye skill option on, it still learns town portal and many other spells as if my spell trait didn't apply. Is there any way I can fix this without turning the eagle eye skill off in the options menu?

[Beholder]

as for creature exp:
in wog options menu you can set the rate at which AI will gain experience (some sort of multiplier). This should help. Also try to collect many warlord banners and set them to +50% experience. It helps a lot.

as for thunderbolt... well the twice casting is because creature experience adds additional atack, so still one bolt will be as previously. As for damage dealt - I don`t think it`s too high. A bit too low in fact I might add. You can get quite few thousands of damage with less than a hundred of thunderbirds and the bolt would be a small addition like... 20%? It`s a bit more than if you`d cast bloodlust on them...

[mr.hackcrag]

I don't know where you got the 20% from. I tested it out, and it seems to deal 25 damage per thunderbird, and that is way too powerful. A lot of people at this WoG forum seem to talk about these giant armies like you mentioned of 100's of thunderbirds. I don't know how other people play, but I always try to win the map as quickly as possible, so there is rarely enough time to get that many in the first place. When armies are smaller, the damage from the bolt is VERY damaging.

And I know that the extra bolt is experience based, but I was just emphasizing how powerful this giant chicken can be!

EDIT: Actually, I think the damage is somehow fixed. Sometimes the number reflects 25 damage per bird, but I just saw 1 thunderbird kill 34 skeletons with it's bolt. Then it struck me again, killing 34 more. I can't imagine why you think this should be more powerful!

[Fnord]

I don't know where you got the 20% from. I tested it out, and it seems to deal 25 damage per thunderbird, and that is way too powerful. A lot of people at this WoG forum seem to talk about these giant armies like you mentioned of 100's of thunderbirds. I don't know how other people play, but I always try to win the map as quickly as possible, so there is rarely enough time to get that many in the first place. When armies are smaller, the damage from the bolt is VERY damaging.

And I know that the extra bolt is experience based, but I was just emphasizing how powerful this giant chicken can be!

EDIT: Actually, I think the damage is somehow fixed. Sometimes the number reflects 25 damage per bird, but I just saw 1 thunderbird kill 34 skeletons with it's bolt. Then it struck me again, killing 34 more. I can't imagine why you think this should be more powerful!

If stack XP is turned off, is the Thunderbolt normal? Aside from the second bolt gained through stack XP, I don't think there was meant to be any change to the original Thunderbolt's damage--if there is a change I'm fairly certain it was unintentional and hopefully could be fixed by Slava in 3.59 if you can provide specific details of what it was before vs. after, etc.

[Fnord]

While I'm complaining about stuff, I'm using a spell trait that changes many level 4 spells to level 5 such as town portal and armageddon, however, when I turn the eagle eye skill option on, it still learns town portal and many other spells as if my spell trait didn't apply. Is there any way I can fix this without turning the eagle eye skill off in the options menu?

You could edit script03. Are you using the beta updates or the original 3.58f scripts?

If using the original scripts, you would need to edit line 275:

Code: Select all

!!VRv920:C7/19/22/23/26/29/38/48/50/55/56/58/59/65/9;     [table of 4th level spells, town portal at the end]

The spell at the end is Town Portal (the number 9) so you should change it to another 4th level spell instead--that would be the simplest way I think. Check Format SP in ERM Help for spell numbers.


If you're using a beta update that's using the !!FU$spell$ to get spells numbers instaed, you should either go into the $spell$ function in script00 and change the level of Town Portal there (probably a good idea as other scripts use !!FU$spell$ too) or else edit line 266 in script03 to exclude Town Portal. It should currently read:

Code: Select all

!!FU$spell$:Px1/x1/0/0/1/0;

Change it to:

Code: Select all

!!FU$spell$:Px1/x1/0/0/1/0/1/9;

If you want to change Town Portal's level in !!FU$spell$, find the line in script00 that reads:

Code: Select all

!!VRy-96&x1=9:S4; [Town Portal]

And change the 4 to a 5.

(This line may be line 454 of the script but it I'm not sure as we may have updated the script since the last beta update so the line number could be different now.)

[mr.hackcrag]

Okay, first of all, I think I've figured out why the thunderbirds bolt is so powerful. With stack xp on, it says something like, "casts bolt with mass/expert effect" in the stat descriptions menu. In my Sptrait file, I have it set so that spells deal an additional 3*SP damage at expert level. So lighting bolt at expert level would deal an additonal 75 points of damage on top of the hero's base SP damage. For some reason, the game adds this bonus into the thunderbirds bolt damage. That accounts for why I thought that it was doing 25 damage per bird.

And I think for some reason, the damage goes up as the TB increases rank, which would account for why the damage was so insanely high. But I haven't tested this second thing though.

So you can ignore what I said before, I think this problem is only specific to me. I don't know how I'm supposed to fix it without changing my SPtrait file though...

Now as for the second thing you mentioned, I'm playing 3.58 and I used the SPtraits file to make changes to the spells. I'm not really sure what programs or scripts I need to make the changes you've mentioned because I've never done erm before, and if I could, the first thing I'd want to do is rearrange creatures to other factions as I mentioned in the wish list.

I tried to read Cain's ERM For Dummies thread, but I think I need ERM For Huge Dummies. I feel really bad that you went through all the trouble to write that code, and I don't even know how to use it. To make matters worse, it wasn't just a few level 4 spells that I made changes to, there were also a few level 2 and 3 spells. I appreciate your efforts nonetheless though.

[mr.hackcrag]

I take back what I said in my last post, that was a dumb theory. The damage a thunderbird does with it's thunderbolt appears to be completely random.

I removed my sptraits and fought a bunch of battles with a stacks of 1 thunderbird, and the damage dealt ranged from 10 (which is what it's supposed to be) to 150! They were all at rank 0 at first, but I never tested above rank 1. I certain that I've seen it deal a LOT more during other maps I played, but I wasn't paying enough attention at the time to remember it. I'm not sure what to make of this erratic damage ratio.

I'll try testing without stack xp and also with a higher number of thunder birds and see what happens.

[Fnord]

Okay, first of all, I think I've figured out why the thunderbirds bolt is so powerful. With stack xp on, it says something like, "casts bolt with mass/expert effect" in the stat descriptions menu. In my Sptrait file, I have it set so that spells deal an additional 3*SP damage at expert level. So lighting bolt at expert level would deal an additonal 75 points of damage on top of the hero's base SP damage. For some reason, the game adds this bonus into the thunderbirds bolt damage. That accounts for why I thought that it was doing 25 damage per bird.

And I think for some reason, the damage goes up as the TB increases rank, which would account for why the damage was so insanely high. But I haven't tested this second thing though.

So you can ignore what I said before, I think this problem is only specific to me. I don't know how I'm supposed to fix it without changing my SPtrait file though...

Good to know there probably isn't a problem caused by WoG.

Although you could always test with SoD as well just to compare (to be sure).

Now as for the second thing you mentioned, I'm playing 3.58 and I used the SPtraits file to make changes to the spells. I'm not really sure what programs or scripts I need to make the changes you've mentioned because I've never done erm before, and if I could, the first thing I'd want to do is rearrange creatures to other factions as I mentioned in the wish list.

I tried to read Cain's ERM For Dummies thread, but I think I need ERM For Huge Dummies. I feel really bad that you went through all the trouble to write that code, and I don't even know how to use it. To make matters worse, it wasn't just a few level 4 spells that I made changes to, there were also a few level 2 and 3 spells. I appreciate your efforts nonetheless though.

To make the changes I suggested, it's quite simple. Scripts are just text files that are interpreted by the game properly, with a tiny change in them that means you should open and save them with the ERM scripter program (to avoid them being screwed up).

So all you have to do is make sure you have the ERM script editor (and probably ERM Help too so you can look up stuff like spell numbers) from the optional WoG Tools download (on the download page) and then open those scripts I mentioned in the script editor.

All WoGify scripts can be found in the Data\s folder.

After you open the scripts, just search for the lines I mentioned (ctrl-F and paste the line into the search box if you like) and then put in the changed code instead and save it. Simple. No ERM scripting skills required.

[mr.hackcrag]

I think this time I've figured it out for real. I'm pretty certain that the increase in damage only applies if Stack XP is turned on in the options menu considering the bolt damage was consistently multiplied by 10 per thunderbird when I turned it off. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty confident this is the way it is. SoD has always been the same from my memory.

My new theory is that when stack xp is enabled, thunderbirds deal random damage multiplied anywhere between 10 and 150! As I mentioned earlier, a stack of 1 always did at least 10, but up to 150 damage. There were many other numbers in between, but it was most frequently 10 though.

I tried attacking with a stack of 6 TB and damage ranged from 60 to 250. Once again, I think the number chosen is completely random, but doesn't exceed the multiplier of 150 which I've seen come up only once. So with a stack of 6 multiplied by 150, it could deal up to 900 damage! Pretty crazy, huh? That explains why when I fought the computer on impossible difficulty, and he attack my devils with about 40 thunderbirds, it killed 9 from the thunderbolt!

No enhanced options or such were on while testing. I'm not really sure if this info is even helpful to you though. If there is anything else I can do, let me know.

Thanks for the info about scripts. I'll check it out later tonight.

EDIT: Well, as I mentioned, I'm not using the beta, so I found line 275 in original scripts, but how do you know which numbers all the spells correlate to? And what number should I change 9 to? Finally, will these changes still apply if I ever update to 3.59? Thanks for your help.

[Beholder]

In my Sptrait file, I have it set so that spells deal an additional 3*SP damage at expert level.

I`d like to know how were you able to do this. AFAIK in Sptraits all damage spells have damage of a*SP+b where a is constant for all skill levels, and b can be set to a different value for each level. So for example you can make spell wok like this:
none: 25*SP+30
basic: 25*SP+50
advanced: 25*SP+100
expert: 25*SP+350

but you won`t be able to do something like this:
none: 25*SP+30
basic: 30*SP+50
advanced: 40*SP+100
expert: 50*SP+350

So how come that you made expert spell deal additional SP*3 damage?
I`m interested because I`m writing my own magic altering script right now.

[mr.hackcrag]

I'm not sure if I completely understand your example, but here is what I did. And just to note, I actually downloaded Ya5MieL already modified sptrait file and simply made a few of my own changes to it. He might be able to help you more if I can't.

When you open sptrait file in excel, Column "L" is for the power/damage of the spell. I set the value of column L at 25, (which is the default value) so bolt will deal 25*hero's spell power.

Then, I manually calculated how much additional damage would be added by having a secondary skill magic school proficiancy. I used the formula, +1 SP at basic, +2 at advanced, and +3 at expert. If you head to columns I-K, they are listed as "Basic," "Advanced," and "Expert" respectively.

I simply changed the values in these boxes to reflect my formula. At basic level, 25*1 is 25, so I put that value in the box. Advanced was 50, and expert was 75. And that's it.

Let me know if you need me to clear anything up since what I wrote is probably confusing.

[Beholder]

the I-K collumns aren`t multiplied by SP but added to it.
So if you have it like this:

Power None Basic Advanced Expert
25 25 25 50 75

then it would deal:
None: 25*SP+25
Basic 25*SP +25
Advanced: 25*SP+50
Expert 25*SP+75

Those are only 'addition' bonuses. The SP multiplier is the same for all skill levels and you can`t change it using SPtraits file.

[mr.hackcrag]

I know they are added, that was my point. Maybe the way I presented it earlier was wrong, sorry. But the addition damage can be anything you want. It won't actually deal damage multiplied by your SP, but you can calculate and set manually how much damage or additional damage each spell can do.

For example, I have inferno set to deal 20*SP. So using my formula I mentioned before, at basic skill, it adds +1 SP on top of your existing SP in damage. If your SP is 10, it will deal 200 plus an additional 20, for a total of 220. If you were at expert, it would be 260.

But you can set the numbers at whatever you want.

[Ya5MieL]

The edit in sptraits file was meant to create an "illusion" of having +xSp, thus simplifying the players' outcome calculation for spells that dont have exact damage included in info.

Of course original formula is still plain X*SP+fixedamount but it makes it easier to know how much damage you are actualy gona do with a spell IMHO.

Thus, in that example... +25,+50,+75 indeed does have the exact same effect as it would be for player to have +1,+2,+3 SP....

[Beholder]

I get it
I just didn`t get it in the beginning but now I know what he meant.