2014-06-11 21:01:42

Hi.

I believe it's OK for radius damage.

There is just a mistake for the thestral, it's not an undead unit.

To learn to master the CrazyMod, don't forget that you can play with your friends in alliance against a CPU alliance. Maybe we should organize this kind of game. I think this way is more fun for the beginners.

2014-06-12 07:05:46 (edited by Victorious 2014-06-12 07:08:34)

User guide updated, apologies for the error.

The aggressive AI is good for familiarizing players with the races but doesn't really prepare you for multiplayer because in my admittedly limited experience with multiplayer, the AI doesn't play like players at all. It doesn't use strategy, but is just a predefined list of units to recruit then send at you, and once you play the AI enough, their actions are always predictable. Not so for players though.

2014-06-12 08:26:21

I'd have to agree. This is why I mostly don't like playing against AI. This is such a strategy-heavy game that the element of strategy just can't be ignored. Unfortunately it's rather hard to make truly strategic computer players.

2014-06-12 14:03:53

this mod is just awesome.. I really like it..
ah and now I can have zombies on my z maps.. big_smile

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
Stephen King

2014-06-12 17:32:28

Can spook lights be looked at - are they supposed to be player controllable or be able to move about? If darks can get enough lichs, spook lights can attack anywhere with impunity, and there is no way to stop them. I think they should be made killable or be unable to move, because I feel they are pretty overpowered.

2014-06-12 18:16:44

I don't know... They seem really weak damage wise, but I suppose if you have enough of them...
They only last for 2 minutes though, which really isn't that much time to do damage.

2014-06-12 18:37:36

They move pretty fast, and being hit with never-ending waves of 30+ spook lights isn't fun, especially on large maps where the lichs responsible can't be easily found.

2014-06-12 18:44:17

I agree with victorius, getting constantly attacked by those things and not being able to do anything about it just felt unfair. I lost my whole main square, even my most upgraded townhall building to them. I'm not sure how they work, but I would suggest having them not able to move, and only able to be summoned on adjacent squares. Although, they did seem to be the only unit that really posed a threat, so maybe it's there to buff that race a bit. Also, elementals are way too overpowered. And I don't really understand why people say robots are so powerful, their units are mostly pretty weak and do little damage, except for the plasma cannon, but that is ridiculously expensive to get and just not very practical when you need to gather those resources. Plus, it costs a lot to really just get started, and you are pretty vulnerable in the beginning.

2014-06-12 19:27:20

Hi.

Spook lights are not controlable and lichs can call them only on their square. Normaly, if you controle your adjacent squares, it's difficult for lichs to install their spook lights in your square. Maybe I don't understand the problem, because it's similar to the spells of savage race for example. In fact, the spells of the witch is more dangerous, because she can launch them from the adjacent square.

2014-06-12 21:24:10

I will agree that elementals are pretty much unstoppable once they have established themselves. However this will probably just require different strategy. I won two games against robots with my elementals easily, but no one bothered to attack me before I already had lots of units...
Also it doesn't seem elementals can defend themselves very well against attacks from adjacent squares, so perhaps that is something you should use to your advantage if you play against them.
And maybe try to convert some of those elementals? not sure how effective this is, I'm not so good at using abilities like convert and clone because I either do it too soon or too late. I guess it takes practice!

2014-06-13 03:13:09

nah, water elementals have an ajcent square attack that has a gigantic damage radius, if I remember correctly. If you have enough of them they are unstoppable; you can throw any number of units at them and they'll just go down. It also doesn't help that the water elemental has 300 hp.

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2014-06-13 03:54:19 (edited by sanslash332 2014-06-13 05:04:13)

Hello pragma:
First of all, thanks to you for create this awesome mod for sounrst; you have totally resurrected the game.

Well, you must try to talk with Gean to integrate officially the mod in the releases of soundrts. You have managed to get the full potential of the game adding this eight awesome razes.

Also, I've some suggestions to add, o investigate to add in the future versions of the mod:

The darks can use and take advantage of corpse of its opponents, but have a lots of problems when it battles against robots, or any race that non produces corpses. They needs one ability that produce corpses paying some manna or resources.  This is possible. I've programmed a little ability in a test mod to try it. For example, is a good option to put this ability in the tree of tenebres (tree of tenebres sounds better than three of dark xD).

And other suggestion, is that traditional branch need a basic soldier like a formerly footman. The archer is a good anti air unit, but is fragile and with a expensive cool down. Or, reduce the tier of stables.

Other thing, is that you (or our) must propose a starting standard for all the map. In the maps that start with a few gold and woods, the expensive race have a very bad early game. But if the map is like a ONJ1, with 4000 g and w, the faster races can do nothing when fight against expensive.

I propose that a good start is a one farm, the respective town all, five workers and 50 gold and woods. Also,  the starting square for each player, must have one goldmine with some gold (not  many) and one forest.
With this, you'll try to repair or made some official maps for have a fully balanced battle. Centering in a 1 vs. 1 battles.

Next, try to  invent another style of play for the races. For example one that all of its buildings can builds alone, without the support of one or more workers, but having the inconvenience that it can't be build faster putting more workers in it. Or another race that creates its unit mutating a one central unit, like the zergs of starcraft.

Well, many things to create, many options. The potential of the game is enormous, and in the future, Gean can put a lot of more interesting options for customizing and create more skills, units, and styles of game.

Thanks for all your effort in this mod. Continue with it and make it greater and greater.

A, try to put different voices and alerts for each race. Human voices don't sounds good in undeads or robots xd.

Bye!

And sorry for my bad English.

edit:

one note: i'm verifing if the units with the option "special range" can atack in the same square, and the answer is no. I take the soundrts 1.2a8 without the mod, and i created a small map with only 1 square, and i put in it one catapult (previous modification of it option to range 3) one peasant, farm and town all (for each player) and the catapults doesn't atack. But, when i modified the parameter special range to 0, the catapult start to atack the enemy units... Interesting no?

2014-06-13 05:13:07 (edited by Victorious 2014-06-13 05:40:26)

@Pragma: it seems like spook lights are not supposed to be controllable, but they are. I've been in battles where dark opponents just send waves of spook lights flying towards my square; his lichs did not have to be anywhere no me because you could make the spook light move. Probably a bug?
@sanslash332: yes, units with special range (or able to attack adjacent tiles) can't defend themselves against units on the same square. I don't get what you mean about standards for maps though - its true that a lot of older maps were not made with crazy mod in mind, but the variety of starting resource and resource distribution throughout squares is part of what makes different strategies viable in different maps.
@arjan: I'm not sure if KeyWasFull or I would have beaten you if we had attacked you first, but we were too busy fighting each other I guess.
@zakc93: lol robots are weak, but they do really fantastic damage - not just plasma cannons. In addition, they have radar towers, which is the ultimate intel gathering tool, they have units that attack both airborn and ground units in adjacent squares which is amazing, magnetic thunderstorms that can wreck you if you're really unlucky, and their units are actually relatively cheap for the power they provide. Lets not forget that all of them except geeks are not healable, leave no corpse behind, do not require food, etc etc etc...

2014-06-13 08:46:25

Regarding the ajacent square attackers thing, we need at least 1 or 2 more spells that can deal damage to any unit no matter whether it is healable or undead or whatever. THe mage meteors spell is the only one I know of this type other than magnetic thunderstorm which targets random squares. Thunderbolt does damage to everything, but the damage is small and does not do residual damage. Remind of any others but I don't think there are. The spook light thing is almost certainly a bug, as you have to control them all using q and then 1. You can control deadly fog, evil fog etc the same way, but they can't moved at all.

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2014-06-13 08:56:05

I agree that the different maps are part of the strategy in terms of which race you should choose.
Hmm, I looked at all the elementals and I could've sworn I didn't see anything about adjacent squares, but looking again it seems you are right.
Looks like your only option then is to get a few preferably airborn units very quickly and hope you can wreck your opponent before he makes one elemental. That does seem a bit limited strategy wise.
I wonder if there's the infrastructure to develop the ability to mess with the stats of your opponents somehow. It would be quite nice if water elementals weren't powerful, but had the ability to reduce the speed of your enemies for example. Or maybe that's an idea for a new race. I hope things like that are possible!

2014-06-13 09:01:38

Interesting, I always thought units with special range can also attack units on the same square if they have a range, only those who don't specify a normal range are only able to attack adjacent squares. But I just tested it and it doesn't work this way. Then what is the point of specifying ranges for units with special_range?
@victorius: Good point about the robots, but that magnetic storm ability is practically useless because you can't choose where it should go, it literally just picks any random square on the entire map. And robot units' damage is low compared to the technicals for example, but I can see how they would be useful against the undead.
I'm starting to think the technicals are my favourite race, they seem pretty powerful. And I was able to beat key is full with them, maybe only because he had already spent most of his units on you and had run out of gold.
@Arjan: water elementals can do a lot of damage to adjacent squares; in that one game where you defeated me and pragma, all the ground units of my robot army were wiped out in seconds, and obviously the laser vessels didn't stand a chance after that. I was planning to try and convert an elemental with my magnetic tower, but my buildings also went so fast it was over before I could react.
Elementals definitely need to be nerfed. Maybe take away their ability to attack adjacent squares, they're powerful enough to just charge into any enemy square, they really don't need that. And if a unit has such a large splash range, it really shouldn't do that much damage, or it should have a long cooldown.

2014-06-13 10:16:43

Another idea for nurfing elementals besides removing the ajacent square thing, which is something that I agree with by the way, is to make it so that the research only improves the elemental which the tower recruits. So super life would only affect water elementals, super armor would only affect earths, etc, instead of having it affect all of them.

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2014-06-13 10:54:54

Hi.

OK, I know now how spook lights are controlable. I just tested and it seems that in effect class, they become non-controllable.

Catapults can attacks adjacent squares but have not range on their own square. On the contrary, all the others have a range parameter. Normaly, magnetic cannons for example should be to able to attack on their square.

Yes, it's true that water elemental can erase a square very fastly. But, like cannons of the robotics, he cannot see adjacent squares itself. Thus, to defend, it's easy because elemental tower see the adjacent squares, but for an attack he requieres an air elemental to be efficient. In our games, if elementals loses the air elementals, they become more deffensive.

Finally, perhaps we can enjoy the next update to increase the speed of airships to 1.66 or 1.75 for example. They would become faster than the walkers.

2014-06-13 13:30:44 (edited by keyIsFull 2014-06-13 13:35:06)

pragma, magnetic cannons cannot defend themselves against attackers in the same square, that's what we mean by the special range. I don't hink you can have a unit that can attack units  in the current square as well as attack units in ajacent squares. You cano lny have 1 or the other.
Regarding the need for air elementals, I agree that's a shortcoming, but still it's not much of one because you can't get anywhere close to attacking a squad of like 7 water elementals if they have just 1 air elemental. Also most of the spells that affect areas like deadly fog are useless against them. As I have said before, we need more spells like meteors and thunderbolt that damage everything.

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2014-06-13 15:43:36

Yes, agreed with KeyWasFull. Whatever range you set, magnetic cannons, or any unit that has special range cannot defend itself against units on the same square. I'm positive because I've had my cannontower converted by an enemy, and it didn't attack other buildings i had in the square.

Its true that water elementals don't see adjacent squares itself, but getting air elementals isn't that hard. Also, its not hard to put an elemental in each adjacent square, and have a huge water elemental army at the centre. I think that there should be alternative strategies allowed for elementals to be taken down, aside from trying to wreck them before they can build their towers. Even robots have a weakness, even though they are offensively really strong. I could try using air units to attack them, but that probably wouldn't work against most players because they would have thought of that. Giving them a longer cooldown, or less splash radius would really help, as well as making the research only apply to one elemental type.

A speed bump on airships will be really, really welcome.

2014-06-13 16:23:31

Maybe the special range thing is a bug, someone should mention it to Jean-Luc. It makes sense that if a unit has a range in addition to special_range it should be able to attack in both its own and adjacent squares. Also agree with everything that has been said about elementals. Another thing, the magnetic storm and unstable portal abilities are pretty useless. At least with the portal you can research one that is very useful, plus ending up on some random square can be interesting, especially since you can recall your units. But having the magnetic storm happen on any random square just seems pointless. Maybe you should make it so that it can be summoned on adjacent squares? Also, shouldn't the nimble archer clones maybe last a bit longer?

2014-06-13 17:13:44

Agreed about magnetic storm. I think unstable portal is fine just how it is, as a stepping stone for portal, probably one of the most powerful abilities in the entire game.

2014-06-13 17:24:49

@Victorious:
    its true that the variety of strategies and moves that you can do its been defined by the starting resources and distribution of them in the maps, but I'm take examples from another RTS games.
In starcraft, all official maps have a one standard starting  structure for each starting point on each map, and all of the razes can balanced supposing that all have same opportunities of start the battle with the same access of resources.

@pragma:
when I tested the special range I change the range property of catapult, to secure that it is  different than 0. An effectively, the catapult can't attack another catapult, while its having a range of 3 5 10 and 30. Of course with the special range in on. When I turned it to off, the catapult can attack.

@Victorious
doubt: the units that can attack adjacent squares needs vision to can attack it? For example, if the water elemental can attack adjacent squares, but not have a sight range, they effectively can't attack adjacent squares except when it's next to an air elemental?

respecting to thing that game must to be considered, is that in the maps, is necessary to have the option to make totally inaccessible a group of squares. In some maps they have a beautiful polygonal structure, but when airborn units came to the action, all of structure of the map will be destroyed.
In other words, the capacity for specify squares that any unit can't walk through it, and is impossible target it for an skill.

2014-06-13 17:56:06

Yes, if the  water elemental is not next to an air elemental that sees into adjacent squares, it won't attack.
Most maps give each player equal resource/access to resources, in my experience.

2014-06-14 17:34:17 (edited by Shadowcat 2014-06-14 17:34:51)

just an update, I'm pretty sure this has been mentioned before but I think the units that can attack adjacent squares need to also have the site property, otherwise they're useless and never attack anything

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