Major Release 04MAY

MAJOR RELEASE 04MAY

Hi all,

Major update today - lots of new functionality, some bugfixes, some general changes to things.

MAGE WARS - ADDITIONAL MANA SPEND
All spells - with the exception of self-cast spells such as Runes or Geomancy "Spirit of..." spells - can now be topped up with additional Mana at the casters' wish. 

This means that the caster is in control of the amount of spell power that goes into the spell; and consequently that more powerful magics can no longer simply be brushed aside by players who wish to be rid of their ill effects.

We expect this to reduce the tit-for-tat spell casting and massive accumulated mana pools substantially.  We also expect this to provide new relevance to the Lunar Phases.  Basically, if you want a spell to stick (and to be painful to remove), top it up.  If you want a spell to *really* stick, get an Elf to cast it, at a full moon, with a Level 20 Mage Tower.

To top up your mana and increase spell power, simply enter the amount of mana you wish to add to a spell in the "Additional Mana" box on the spell itself.

This is also a heads-up. 

We are introducing 2 new "school-less" spells that anyone will be able to cast, having researched them:

• Identify Magic
  This spell will require Mage Tower Level 3, and will allow the caster to choose an unknown hostile spell - and identify who cast it on them.  To identify the caster, the mage will need to spend the same amount of Spell Power points as the original caster. 
  
  
• Dispel Magic
  This spell will require a Mage Tower Level 7, and will allow the caster to choose a hostile spell to dispel.  Dispelling the spell will require the same amount of Spell Power points as the original caster spent on the spell.

These two spells will come into effect on Friday the 7th of May.

The reason we are delaying the release till then is to allow casters who do not wish to be identified ample time to cancel their existing spells.

ARMY COMBAT REPORTING - SCOUTS

Defeated armies no longer report the precise composition of the opposing force.  If no one survived, how could you know the force composition?

In practical terms:

• Defeated attacking armies do not receive the force composition of the defender
• Defeated defending armies *at a city* continue to receive the force composition of the attacker - the civilians are capable of accurate reports
• Defeated defending armies (abroad - occupying, sieging or blockading) do not receive the force composition of the attacker
• Successful armies of either side receive full combat reports

DIPLOMATIC (LEVEL 2) QUESTS
Yes - they're here.

There's a new Quest Skill - Diplomatic Contacts - to research to unlock them, which you can find in your research summary under "Quests".

Be prepared to be surprised - some of them aren't, strictly, NPC (non-player-character) quests. You should also be prepared for "random" instancing - where the same quest might have slightly varying fulfillment conditions - as well as random reward fluctuations.  Some of the quests have escalations, and are multi-part.

Diplomatic quests at this level require a combination of the diplomatic unit skills (no quest will require more than either basic or advanced scouts, or a basic spy), and might also require some previous Quests skills (such as trade).

The number of new quests available is currently limited to make sure the mechanics work as intended - we will release more L2 diplomatic quests over the coming days before moving on to Military Quests (Level 3 Quests).

Once we are satisfied that Diplomatic & Military Quests are working as intended we will move on to the advanced levels of all the Quests (Trade, Diplomatic & Military).

ALLIANCES

• PLAYER INVITATIONS
  All player invitations are now visible to all alliance members - not just those invitations you yourself issued.  This means that invitations from other members of the alliance can be cancelled by other people who have the "Invite Player" permission.  This makes it easier for alliance to manage their outstanding invitations.
  
  
• TAX COLLECTORS
  The Alliance Capital City's tax collectors in motion counted towards their "total caravan count" when calculating whether the Alliance Capital City owner could build a new caravan or not. This has been fixed.
  
  
• ALLIANCE MEMBER ACTIVITY
  A player whose account was being "sat" by an Account Sitter was showing as "not logged in" for extended periods of time - this has now been rectified

SPELLS

• EXPIRY TIME
  Is now displayed in DDMONYY HH:SS format rather than the old, confusable, 11/04/2010 thing
• MANA UPKEEP DURING COOLDOWN
  Spells that had upkeep costs would continue to withdraw mana whilst the spell was expired/cancelled and in cooldown. This has been rectified

TRADE

• The Caravanserai skill now properly doubles the movement speed of caravans
• 4 new trade technologies have been released, to speed the acquisition of goods via gathering. These new technologies are:
• Chain Gang (Marketplace L4) adds +5% resource gathering speed
• Goods Pallet (Marketplace L8) adds an additional +10% resource gathering speed
• Loading Platform (Marketplace L13) adds an additional +15% resource gathering speed
• Conveyor Systems (Marketplace L18) adds an additional +20% resource gathering speed

DIPLOMACY

• Spies (basic and advanced) now report on the City Wall level of the target city, which they were somehow failing to observe before
• Saboteurs (basic and advanced) now have a build cost equivalent to their first hour's pay. Whilst not a major change, this brings them into line with all other Diplomatic Units
• Assassins are no longer allowed to assassinate already dead commanders in the process of resurrection.  A commander has to be alive to be killed!

RANKING CHANGES

• Trade Ranking
  Trade ranking will change again to take into account the actual "profit" - in terms of base resources - of a trade.  So trading 10,000 gold for 10,000 gold simply as a means to boost score will cease to boost score.  Trading 10,000 gold for 9,999 gold will increase the profiting player's score by one.  Current scores will be reset to take this change into account - so please bear this in mind whilst artifically boosting your ranking ;)
  
  
• Attack and Defense
  This is not, currently, working as intended.  Defense score can be artificially boosted by simply participating in a defence with a single unit; and attack score is being granted apparently rather arbitrarily, depending on the shifting sands of the system at any given moment.  Attack & Defense scores calculations will be revisited in the near future, and an accurate ranking and score will be reissued based on the complete combat logs of the past (which we have).
  

MISC

• A few typos have been corrected, though doubtless many others have been introduced
• Players, Alliances and Towns using the < and the > symbols in their names have had them altered to HTML-friendly code, and in certain instances the usage has been prohibited

We hope you like.

Best wishes,

GM Stormcrow



Edited by GM Stormcrow - 04 May 2010 at 19:24

well, mainly very nice but;

• Identify Magic
  This spell will require Mage Tower Level 3, and will allow the caster to choose an unknown hostile spell - and identify who cast it on them.  To identify the caster, the mage will need to spend the same amount of Spell Power points as the original caster. 
  
  
• Dispel Magic
  This spell will require a Mage Tower Level 7, and will allow the caster to choose a hostile spell to dispel.  Dispelling the spell will require the same amount of Spell Power points as the original caster spent on the spell.

Not sure about the point of these.  identify magic - level 3 is a very low requirement, and i think you should be very determined to know who it was - a considerable tariff on it.  not that i'm the sort of chap who casts anonymous spells; eh, laura? lol.

Dispel magic - i think the present mechanic of simply casting a similar spell, with the chance of success, is working very well.  I hope at least it will have an equal failure rate.

tbh, most such spell casting is only done for rankings since almost always the cost outweighs the success. (eh, lc?, lol).

How about an extra tarriff to report actual success eg resources diddled?

Bow

you are forgetting the second condition- you have to match the spell power- so if you Don't want them to know who you are, spend a lot of mana

bow locks wrote: well, mainly very nice but; Dispel Magic This spell will require a Mage Tower Level 7, and will allow the caster to choose a hostile spell to dispel.  Dispelling the spell will require the same amount of Spell Power points as the original caster spent on the spell. Dispel magic - i think the present mechanic of simply casting a similar spell, with the chance of success, is working very well.  I hope at least it will have an equal failure rate.

In my mind this corrects the arbitrary shortcoming of being unable to fix blights cast upon your own cities.  It also doesn't mean you have to be blight-strong to get out of a blight, and thus can keep that school slot open for something else.

Following up on james, suppose one took profit as a ratio to resources gained vs resources lost, capped between 0 and 1.  "Unfavorable" trades would have no impact, and favorable trades would be scaled down according to how favorable they were.  Trade 900 x for 1000 y (a resource of equivalent value), and get score of 1000 * (1000-900 / 1000) = 100;  The other party, trading 1000 y for 900 x gets score of 900 * (900-1000 / 1000) < 0 = 0;

This is still exploitable, but I don't think any decent system can totally escape that.  If resources have a normalized value, this would at least be reasonable assessment of non-contextual benefit gained...and an exploit is going to at least be a lot of work, trading vast quantities, keeping caravans busy, risking loss to storage capacities, or juggling advanced resources that are highly valuable and desirable to loot by blockading.

I question the intellect of players going for a high trade score.  When the ability comes to take home looted resources from intercepted caravans, that score is just going to be a target on your back.