Worlds of Magic

Well, WoM is scheduled for a beta update later today, and an 'official' update on Friday, and I don't yet have any news to report on what it will include, other than bug fixes. That said, the game is being offered for 25% off at Gamer's Gate:
http://www.gamersgate.com/games?prio=relevance&q=wastedd
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-WOM/worlds-of-magic

 

I just received the latest update through kickstarter:

1. Thursday Ifor the beta release) and Friday, the game is going to be getting a major AI update. Although there were some minor tweaks, and some reversals of those tweaks (lol) of the AI, the current stat of the game is that there is no AI other than in combat. There's been a lot of improvements up until now on combat, including the fact that enemy units now use their special abilities (even in quick combat), making them a bit tougher to beat than they were before. But currently, the Strategic AI seems to be a bit passive, except when it comes to upgrading its cities (which do seem to get upgraded fairly quickly). By the weekend, it should be a lot better, but we'll see.

2. The official digital release date is (as of now) March 19th.

3. I'm permitted to link the official digital artbook to the public, so here it is: http://wastelands-interactive.com/WorldsOfMagic/Worlds_of_Magic_Artbook.pdf

Note that Dark Elves and Myrodants are not in the game yet,

Late last week saw the addition of a bunch of new monsters, including Demons, Djinn, Acid Elementals, Harpies, and several more. I will say that Acid Elementals, in spite of their damage, are easy to kill, as are Harpies. Demons are a bit tougher, but it's amazing how great it feels when you charm one of them lol. It's amazing how the tide can turn when suddenly, the enemy's most powerful weapon changes sides.

 

Yeah, I've been circling Worlds of Magic as well, but I'm leaning toward waiting for official release. I played a ton of Master of Magic back in the day (I own the original box and manual), and then found MoM as abandonware, and ran it with DOSBox, and then I purchased it again through GoG, which, as it turns out, is MoM in DOSBox again.

I admire the spirit of WoM's intention, but I'm going to miss the square-grid pixel-y graphics.

Infinifactory, on the other hand, just launched into Early Access, and I already want it so much.

 

It's a 4X game with an emphasis on magic. You should DEFINITELY get Master of Magic. It's a classic, and some would argue, the best Fantasy 4X game ever. I still play it on occasion, and have a great deal of fun with it when I do. That said, it is a bit dated, which is why I'm so excited about Worlds of Magic.

As far as WoM is concerned, it's a work in progress. Today and tomorrow they are releasing the big AI patch. And I can let you know about what I think after I have a chance to check it out. Without the patch, I will say that if you are looking for a finished game, you may not like it. I'm really excited about the game, but I also don't want to give anyone false expectations. The game is a Beta, and it really feels like a beta. It has missing graphics, missing features, bugs, and so on. It HAS gotten pretty stable, though, so that's good. And I would have said, without a decent AI, it's not particularly fun. But The beta release for the AI is today, and the official release is tomorrow, and when I have an opinion on it, I'll post something here. But I'm not going to be home again until this evening, so I'm not getting a chance to play with the beta release until then.

BTW, most people describe Master of Magic as Civilization with spells. There are other differences, but one of its chief inspirations was the original Sid Meier's Civilization.

 

After two short sessions with the new update, my verdict is that the game IS a lot better but has one critical bug which hopefully will be gone with tomorrows release (saved games don't work right).

 

Well, I've gotten a chance to play some more today, this time with the official patch:
An old feature is back in the game, one that many people hate -- rampaging neutral armies. Eventually, there will be a slider to control how fast neutral armies spawn, and/or how aggressive they are. But for now, everything feels like it's cranked up to 11. What that means is that on certain maps (particularly, but not exclusively, the larger ones), you'll start seeing neutral armies of ever increasing size swarm around your cities. And every so often, when they feel confident enough, they will attack If you don't have good enough magic to defend your cities, you are likely to lose them, one by one. You may get into these trading situations as their rampaging army leaves their newly captured city to capture another one, so you get it back but maybe lose the next one over. It's more complicated than that, obviously, but it can be a pain.

What I've been recommending to deal with the rampaging neutrals is that you play with a wizard that starts with decent summons spells, and/or a Wall of Stone spell. Or you can simply start on a smaller map size -- the smaller the map, the easier it is to wipe out neutrals before they become a real problem.

Anyway, I do think the game has gotten to the point where it can be fun. There's still bugs, of course (it's about 2 months from official release, after all). But so long as you don't mind, I think I can recommend it.

One thing I will say -- unless you have overwhelming odds (either of losing or winning), don't leave your battles to quick combat.

 

Here's a cool trailer I found today:

 

BTW, you can win a free copy of the game here:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/explorminate#announcements/detail/123056368336613345

 

I have a new update. I wasn't going to have one today, except that I'm stuck at home (for now), and Wasteland pushed out an emergency patch this morning, fixing a major issue.

1. AI -- As far as combat tactics and army makeup is concerned, the AI is definitely not bad. Both neutrals and enemy wizards tend to make at least one monster stack with a decent ratio of melee to support to ranged units. And those support units do lend their support (although not always in the best way possible. They do tend to concentrate their attacks to eliminate units, which is good. And they do specifically want to kill your ranged units, which is even better. On the other hand, they aren't aggressive -- a single flying unit can stop units that cannot attack them because they will not suffer a backstab in order to reach units that they can attack. Instead, they simply wait to be wittled away. Furthermore, strategically, they aren't all that aggressive unless you are in a state of permanent war (Unhallowed are always in a state of permanent war with all other races, including other Unhallowed, because of their racial attributes).

2. Diplomacy -- this is still incredibly broken. There have been a few improvements to it that have been rendered irrelevant because treaties and deals don't really work.

3. If you want to, at least on a medium or smaller map size, you can conquer your entire home plane in very few turns with a kind of blitzkrieg strategy I came up with. Things are going to be changed, and probably the strategy I used will no longer be as effective. But I was able to conquer the entire shadow plane, and destroy all wandering armies on it by turn 37. By turn 52, I had a foothold on the Prime plane as well. The game is incredibly fun now. But also it's too easy.

 

Here's another chance to get Worlds of Magic for Free:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/265970/discussions/0/618453594744061961/

 

I've never heard of this online store before, so I can't vouch for them, but someone linked the following on Steam. It's a *75%* discount
http://www.wingamestore.com/product/3535/Worlds-of-Magic-Early-Access/

 

I actually purchased Endless Legend from that store; they've only been selling Windows games recently - less than a year. Nothing bad has happened to my credit card information yet.

75% off is pretty awesome, I may take the plunge at that price. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

*edit* I went ahead and purchased Worlds of Magic. I also did a bit of digging, regarding Wingamestore.

Wingamestore is the PC-centric offshoot of the more widely recognized Macgamestore.

In the wake of the most recent gray-market key-reselling scandal (wherein Ubisoft and EA both revoked keys that had ultimately originated from theft), Ubisoft published a list of officially licensed vendors, and Macgamestore was one of the stores Ubisoft officially recognizes.

As such, I have no qualms about purchasing games from WIngamestore.

*second edit* For anyone who might read this, how do I rotate the camera? And how do I move the camera inside of a skirmish?

 

Hold down the right mouse button while moving it left or right will rotate the mouse.

Note that more work is to be done on the camera, hopefully before release -- it works fine for most battles. However, when you are defending, and consequently your units start at the top of the screen (or when you are pursuing units that are trying to escape off the top of the screen), it can be a bit annoying.

 

Note that I don't assume that any online store that I haven't heard of before is either legit or illigitimate -- I just try to be cautious. I've been burned before (not with stolen credit card numbers, but in other ways) once or twice. I've found that the only times my credit card number and my brother's credit card numbers have been appropriated have been through non-online transactions (myself, from, believe it or not, Best Buy, and my brother, from some restaurant overseas). And there are also phone scams where I hadn't actually been scammed, but there certainly were attempts to scam.

 

I haven't posted much news on WoM lately, but here is the new trailer. I don't like it nearly as much as the first one, though:


The game is STILL due to be launched on March 19th. Each new patch brings more fixes, and more content. Unfortunately, I've seen old bugs that were fixed, also coming back on occasion. Diplomacy is a little bit better, but still not good. The game gets more stable, but new things keep popping up. The AI is MUCH better than it was, but there are still problems with it. My 'favorite' diplomacy/AI glitch is that if you attack an AI, he will invariably ask for a truce -- he may ask for money or he may offer money for the truce. But even if he pays you, 2 turns later he will declare 'Eternal War' on you.

There was a lot of push-back to delay the release of the game, but because of agreements with distributors, it can't be changed. My prediction is that it will have a very rocky launch, but that within another 1 to 2 months or so after the March 19th release date, it will be in a reasonable state. The devs have said that they do intend to maintain their weekly update pace after release which is very good news.

 

BTW, they added several new monsters into the game -- the most fearsome of which is shown in the following screenshot: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=403222330

That lone Wyrm managed to just about annihilate my entire army (I did finally defeat him, with only a skeletal archer surviving).

 

Also, WI gave a limited number of us access to play with two new races (Myrodants and Dark Elves) as well as two new planes (Plane of Water and Eden). I haven't been able to break my way onto the Plane of Water just yet, but Eden is a lot like the Prmie Plane, except that it includes special fountains where you can resurrect dead heroes, as well as special temples (I'm not sure yet what the rewards are for clearing the temples of defenders, as the tool tip for that is not working, and they tend to be very heavily defended).

As far as the new races are concerned, the reason why they haven't been released to the general public yet is that they obviously are missing some of the graphics. In any case, Dark Elves are very magically gifted (they get bonus mana for population) but they are not very well liked by other races, and their population grows very slowly. And they tend to start on the Prime plane. They have some decent caster units.

On the other hand, Myrodants tend to start on the Plane of Fire. They have very fast population growth due to special buildings they can construct. They are less magically gifted than average.

Both Myrodants and Dark Elves have poisonous and/or acidic attacks (I actually am a bit confused by the difference, as poison immunity seems to stop Acid damage, and so I'm trying to get clarification on that).

BTW, I've noticed a SIGNIFICANT AI improvement with the latest build in that:
1. When playing Dark Elves, I found that at least one of the other wizards became VERY agressive towards me, which makes sense because of the racial properties.
2. A fellow Myrodant wizard was EXTREMELY expansive (building lots of cities, even faster than I was, though honestly, I tend to be more cautious with my expansion). He was expanding so fast that I felt it was my responsibility to put an end to it (which I did). The problem with fast expansion is that you can't defend yourself all that well while doing that. But it is a valid strategy, since if you can maintain peace while doing so, you can become unstoppable. So I thought it was pretty cool. He did try to sue for peace, but I just said no to that lol. He also was smart about the spells he used (Even to the point of desperation when I was about to capture his capital/last city).

 

It's one week until the official release, and I've been playing a bit with the last night's beta patch (official patch is due out later today).
1. The game was updated to use Unity 5. While this by itself was meaningless to me, what it aparently did was make the game much more stable, especially when dealing with the largest map size with all of the planes selected. I started up a ridiculously huge game like that, and it works just fine. I don't know if you can picture just how ridiculously large the maps are, but here's a quote:
"We are planning to adjust the sizes of the map
There will be following ones:
32*32
32*64
48*48
48*96
64*64
64*128
96*192
128*128
128*256
As you can see last three are just huge even for one plane

IIRC the largest map for Civilization 5 is 128*80 and that is only one plane. Keep this in mind when planning the game, both in terms of amount of territory to conquer and the AI calculations needed."

Note that the actual game size is much larger than that because there are 7 unique planes.

Note that there is a fast movement option, which doubles the base movement speed of every unit on the strategic map. You are REALLY going to want to use that on the larger maps...

2. When configuring the game, you now can select from 4 or 5 plentifulness options for resources, world features, and neutral cities.

3. The city screen has undergone a major overhaul, but its still a work in progress. The first pass at the overhaul gave me a bad first impression, but as I got used to it, and figured out how to configure it to my liking, it grew on me. That said, it still needs work. The devs at least agree with me on some of the changes that are needed.

4. More monsters and spells have been added, including a shambling mound (it looks cool in combat, kind of like Swamp Thing, except it can turn your units into stone (yikes!). One of my favorite new spells is a Water/Summoning spell called "Phantom Warriors". It's the equivalent of the same spell from Master of Magic. It's a super-cheap summoning spell, making Water now one of my favorite schools (before this, it was Earth).

5. There are more map features now, including Shipwrecks. You pretty much need a ship of some kind to explore them.