We're releasing a new update for Caster of Magic for Windows. It contains a truly extensive list of fixes and improvements. You can find the full changelog below.
Please let us know what you think of the changes listed below, as usual your feedback is important to us.
Change History:
Added a custom scripting language. For the time being this has very limited uses, but it's a necessary first step towards more complex modding features such as adding new types of buildings or spells. In general, script files can only be run where the game is expecting one, and these calls to scripts will be added in this and future updates as necessary. See Scripts.TXT for syntax, and Modding.INI for existing script file calls in the system.
The Auto button in combat will now show a menu instead of two yes/no dialog boxes.
It is now possible to activate Auto with or without spellcasting, for one turn or the entire battle.
Fixed 1.1.0 bug : When an outpost shrinks below zero population due to curses or poor terrain, the game crashes.
Fixed 1.1.0 bug : Game crashes when the AI has a very high maximal population city that has a fast growing race on low difficulty settings.
Updated some hero information in the documentation
Fixed bug : Magician hero has 1 random ability instead of the intended 2.
Fixed bug : Warlock hero has normal level Arcane Power ability instead of the intended super.
Fixed bug : Resurrection cast by the human player crashes consistently when hero type 0 (The Dwarf) is dead.
Fixed bug : Hero hire window after casting Incarnation to revive a dead Chosen One shows negative experience.
Fixed bug : Own invisible units are not visible in the city view window shown during targeting spells.
Fixed bug : Lycanthropy was possible to cast on undead normal units
Fixed bug : Buff spells don't refresh combat movement matrix for the selected unit, so Flight movement isn't applied until a different unit is selected from the Flight spell.
Fixed bug : The AI was allowed to use Disenchant Area on warped nodes not owned by them.
Fixed bug : The AI strategy of casting more Drain Power against Spell of Mastery had no effect.
Fixed bug : When the AI tries to target the human player with Spell Blast and Drain Power, the spell fails.
Fixed bug : AI has lower chance to cast Disjunction than intended, especially in low player count games.
When spells are being cast during Auto combat, the advisor will become smarter in picking the spell to cast as overland turns elapse. You can expect the Auto feature to play the same way as the game's default AI starting from around turn 200-250 and generally play better than previous versions except at the very beginning of the game. (Random(100-Current Turn/2.5) will be added to the calculated AI priorities instead of the random(100) used in previous versions)
Added "Master" script file call. This is called at the time the game is launched and can be used to initialize global constants and variables. Variables created here are persistent and available for access in all other script files, while every variable created in other scripts disappears when the script terminates.
Added AI Starting Spell selection script. AI starting spell selection is no longer hardcoded.
Updated the manual to no longer list Wind Walking as an ability of an Archangel
Added debug mode logging of AI starting spell picks in debug mode.
Added debug mode logging of AI books and retorts at the time of starting spell selection
Added AI Spell Research decision script. This decision is no longer hardcoded.
Base AI research priority is now included in Spells.INI instead of being hardcoded. (Lowest priority spell is chosen first)
Added debug mode logging for AI research priorities (base and calculated total) for available options.
Moved AI research group data to Spells.INI from the hardcoded array.
Moved AI uncastable combat spell research delay value to MODDING.INI
Fixed bug : When the AI decides to cast or research Chaos Surge, allied units subtract and enemy units add to the total instead of the opposite.
Fixed bug : AI research priority of Darkest Hour when the AI was behind in spell research was different from intended.
Added "Modding" subsection to the documentation, explaining the contents of each file.
AI starting race selection is now moddable in script file AIRace.CAS.
Added debug logging of selected AI starting races.
AI personality and objective selection is now moddable in script file AIPeOb.CAS.
Animate Ammo no longer affects hero units.
It is now possible to configure in Modding.INI which targets are allowed for Animate Ammo : Heroes, magical ranged attacks, fantastic units.
It is now possible to configure in Modding.INI whether casting Animate Ammo generates casting skill or not.
Fixed bug : Regeneration didn't grant a 100% overland end of turn healing rate.
The hero type ID can now be changed for units in Units.INI.
The amount of hero types can now be changed in Modding.INI. This makes it possible to add new heroes.
Added modding script for the effect of Crack's Call on the target unit and a modding flag to enable/disable wall destruction. If wall destruction is disabled, the AI will be aware of this.
However, the AI will not be aware of any changes made to the script like dealing different damage or applying other effects. AI casting decision scripts are planned to be added in future updates.
Updated the unit sprites for Horde to contain shields (thanks, Suppanut!)
Updated the unit sprites for Gladiators to contain shields (thanks, Suppanut!)
Updated the unit sprites for Minotaurs to contain shields (thanks, Suppanut!)
Updated the unit sprites for Apprentices to contain shields (thanks, Suppanut!)
Fixed bug : Raise Dead calculates halved hp before, instead of after removing unit enchantments.
Fixed bug : Ranged weapons grant Death Touch -2 instead of -3.
Updated the unit sprites for Gorgons (thanks, Suppanut!)
Updated the unit sprites for Phoenix (thanks, Suppanut!)
Updated the unit sprites for Vampire (thanks, Suppanut!)
When casting Mislead, the AI will prioritize targeting units that have a higher percentage of their hp.
AI units standing behind city walls will not use the "move randomly" tactic
when there are no invisible enemy units and they cannot attack due to all enemy units flying.
Fixed bug : When Legacy Tileset is activated, the movement destination arrow
Y positioning is inaccurate and shows where the tile would be without the setting in effect.
Determining when a rare or very rare spell can be found as treasure based on turn count and difficulty is now handled in the script file TreaSpell.CAS
Added script file for modding the effect of Mystic Surge. (amount and type of buffs/debuff generated at random)
Fixed bug : Mystic Surge had a 70% chance to not roll another enchantment instead of 70% to do roll another enchantment.
Reduced the probability of Mystic Surge casting Warp Resistance on the unit.
Updated/fixed missing or outdated information on units, retorts, spells, races, buildings in the documentation.
Units affected by Mystic Surge will now properly display the "Healing Immunity" icon.
Fixed bug : Orc Horde had 1 lower defense and resistance than intended.
Fixed bug : Minotaurs had 1 lower defense than intended.
Fixed bug : It's possible to target your own units with Dispelling Wave outside combat and it can dispel spells from them.
When clicking on the tile the stack is currently on, drowning check will not happen as no movement is actually taking place.
Fixed bug : When a diplomacy warning is escalated into breaking a Wizard's Pact, the text says an Alliance was broken.
The AI will no longer target Forest tiles with Change Terrain if the city has the Gaia's Blessing enchantment.
Fixed bug : The Drought spell did not reduce maximal population by 6.
Fixed bug : Spells that grant extra hp should cancel existing damage on the unit even if the unit cannot be healed normally, but they did not, leaving the unit with damage and extra bonus hp at the same time.
The AI will now prefer the unit with higher total military power in addition to being higher level as the target for the Discipline spell.
The Familiar (F12) advisor will now show a "Domination Rate" value.
This is the percentage of how much progress the player has made towards enabling the "Win" button to finish a game before defeating every other player.
The attack strength of damage dealing spells is no longer hardcoded and can be changed in Spells.INI
The attack spell properties (doom, illusion, fire, etc) can now be changed in Spells.INI
The save penalty of "resist or" spells is no longer hardcoded and can be changed in Spells.INI, including the bonus for the target being an undead or normal/fantastic unit.
When Spells.INI is read to generate Spells.Dat, the data will be logged into log.txt.
The list of spells invalid to be found in treasure is now moddable in Spells.INI
It is now possible to override spell rarity for treasure in Spells.INI (not recommended)
Fixed bug : When the AI does a simulation battle to determine where to move their armies, the "in combat" status of affected units is not cleared, as a consequence they can't be disbanded until the next combat happens.
When casting the Flight spell, units that already fly will only be reported as invalid targets when both their overland and combat movement speed is at least 3, as the spell also grants a minimal 3 movement speed.
Fixed bug : Units affected by the "Animated" status stop being undead once the status is dispelled even though becoming undead should be permanent.
Fixed bug : Magic Immunity protects from Poison even though it is not a magical effect.
Fixed bug : In strategic combat, when ranged and nonranged units fight together, the nonranged units are included when calculating the average ammo of the army, resulting in fewer ranged damage turns than intended.
Fixed bug : Entering the Tax Collector from the Info menu didn't reset the menu scrolling status, leading to a broken menu and/or crashes.
After starting a new game, when world generation finishes, an autosave file will be created. This allows loading the newly generated game through "Continue" even if the game wasn't manually saved and no turns were played.
Spells that have "Disabled" flag in the spell table will not be shown during custom wizard spell selection.
Custom spell selection UI now supports having a non-default amount of spells in a realm/tier.
If more than 12 spells exist in a category, scroll buttons will be shown. At most 20 spells are supported in each realm/tier combination.
Added options in Modding.INI to scale "pick" treasure based on plane size in addition to/instead of number of wizards. (parameters I and J)
Added AICustomwizard.CAS script. This can be used to override or modify what kind of AI wizards are generated.
Fixed bug : Map generation freezes when there isn't enough room on land to place all nodes and some would need to be placed on sea.
Fixed bug : Map generation freezes when there is no room to place all 3 easy starting lairs near a player's fortress.
Fixed bug : Large size maps with Island continent size generate much less overall landmass than intended.
Changed the default ratio of sea/land in modding.ini. (Reduced the amount of sea)
Raise Dead Spell icon on Phoenix will now show the remaining charges.