We love Illwinter! - Page 3

MaxWilson · #21 July 11th, 2007, 12:55 PM

Another thing I love: the flavor text when somebody casts a global enchantment. Even something as innocuous as Eyes of God seems sinister when KO is describing it.

-Max

NTJedi · #22 July 11th, 2007, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Edi said:
I'd also like to add my voice to the chorus of appreciation. Before Dominions, I can't remember a game that absorbed me this thoroughly since the original Age of Wonders.

The site searching improvement is a great one, even though I have yet to use it much.

Yes, it's too bad Triumph didn't bring back the altars from AOW_1 into AOW:SM... I miss those altars. Some events and changes can provide a weaker version, but I missed those altars. I also missed being able to explore the caves and special locations.

NTJedi · #23 July 11th, 2007, 04:15 PM

Quote:

MaxWilson said:
Another thing I love: the flavor text when somebody casts a global enchantment. Even something as innocuous as Eyes of God seems sinister when KO is describing it.

-Max

The description for stellar focus also sounds really nasty until you remember it's only 5 astral gems.

johan osterman · #24 July 11th, 2007, 09:37 PM

Quote:

MaxWilson said:
Another thing I love: the flavor text when somebody casts a global enchantment. Even something as innocuous as Eyes of God seems sinister when KO is describing it.

-Max

I wrote those, and in some cases neglected to.

MaxWilson · #25 July 12th, 2007, 01:29 AM

Well, nice job.

-Max

Wyatt Hebert · #26 July 12th, 2007, 09:33 AM

I'm actually surprised that people have not discovered the search algorithm trigger point.

AFAICT, the 'auto-search' function WILL skip a province if that province has 2 or more sites already in it. EDIT: It will search other provinces that don't meet this condition. It will then default to the province the person is in.

This is ANY 2 sites in it. If you find a province with a Copper Mine and an Arena, the auto-search function will never look at it, in my experience.

I also _think_ the game bypasses any site that has been searched to any level in a single path search spell (if you have had an E1 mage search a province, Gnome Lore will skip it).

This is the primary reason I tend to use Acashic Record. It cuts the number of missed sites to an absolute minimum (as they all pop up at the same time).

Can anyone verify/deny?

Wyatt Hebert

thejeff · #27 July 12th, 2007, 09:49 AM

I'll take a look at this tonight. I was thinking along the same lines, but it didn't seem that simple to me.
I've got a game to test it with.

It's certainly true that auto-search will skip any province that has been searched at all in that path.

Lazy_Perfectionist · #28 July 12th, 2007, 11:09 AM

I don't love Illwinter.
I just don't fall in love on the first date.

That said, I'll keep their number in my little black book.

I'm fairly certain that the game will bypass any site that has a matching path 1 site search. That's been my experience, since I almost always send three Earth Readers out ASAP (golem spam!). It will skip ANY two sites? Then why is it so often searching the capital? Though some civs have only the one site, and I haven't paid perfect attention...

Gandalf Parker · #29 July 12th, 2007, 12:00 PM

Well Dom3 is my fourth "date" with Illwinter so Im sorry if my posts give the impression that Im beginning to feel that its a long term commitment

vfb · #30 July 12th, 2007, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Wyatt Hebert said:
I'm actually surprised that people have not discovered the search algorithm trigger point.

AFAICT, the 'auto-search' function WILL skip a province if that province has 2 or more sites already in it. EDIT: It will search other provinces that don't meet this condition. It will then default to the province the person is in.

This is ANY 2 sites in it. If you find a province with a Copper Mine and an Arena, the auto-search function will never look at it, in my experience.

I also _think_ the game bypasses any site that has been searched to any level in a single path search spell (if you have had an E1 mage search a province, Gnome Lore will skip it).

This is the primary reason I tend to use Acashic Record. It cuts the number of missed sites to an absolute minimum (as they all pop up at the same time).

Can anyone verify/deny?

Wyatt Hebert

Oh no, it's more buggy than that. It'll decide that some provinces are not worth searching, and just leave them off the list forever. (I think it may be that another nation has searched those provinces, so they are in the 'list'.) A captured capital will be skipped, and then for some reason it will start targeting it. I've only seen it target a pre-searched province when the pre-searched province is that current location of the caster, and the auto-search thinks it has no other targets (including provinces it has decided to skip, for whatever reason: a level-1 manual search, a full level-9 search, or it really just doesn't feel like searching that province).

I've seen it target provinces with 2 found sites already several times. I think it does skip provinces with 4 found sites, but I'm not sure.

Another features that would be very nice is to have the auto-search target provinces in order of distance from your capital. There's not much use in auto-searching sites if you're raiding the south, since currently that's what will be auto-targeted first.