Havent managed to finish a game yet - but new (testing)version is certainly an update to the AI. Have to play much more defensively, and distinct AI personalities sometimes visible. Current game example (1 plane, large, 6 oppos, hardest difficulty) was attacked by the AI in turn 32 with a 12 unit army. If i hadnt built the palisade (which i never built in previous versions of the game) i would have been slaughtered. By turn 32 one of the AIs also has five cities - had six, bit one got razed by another AI (something i never saw on the previous version either). Also, one of the AIs knocked out of the game before i even ran into him - i play with the cartographer but hadnt even taken notice of where that AI was, prolly on other side of the map. That's another first in my book! All in all, very promising improvements!
Turn 65. 3 AIs knocked out (none by me, though i contributed a bit on the last one). I have six cities, the three remaining AIs all have about ten. I think the AI is fixed. Next time I'll not start my game on the hardest difficulty.
New Version @manneqer, it's good to hear that your testing of the new version of Planar Conquest shows significant improvement in the AI. I have been reading posts in other forums by people putting down Planar Conquest as no improvement from Worlds of Magic in any respect but specifically mentioning the AI. Of course this is wrong as there have been several improvements even before the new patch you are testing: 1. The user interface for PC is a lot better than the user interface in WOM. 2. On my iPad air 2 PC is much more stable than WOM was in its Windows version. 3. At least for me, the visuals for PC make it easier to pck out units from terrain on the Earth plane than I could in WOM. Thanks for your efforts testing the new patch. I hope its ready for the rest of us soon.
I'm very happy to hear that the hardest AI will now be very difficult. I've been playing on the hardest difficulty and it's just sad to see 4 druids chase around a magic spirit for 30 turns while I just walk into their only city. I'm excited to see an AI with 10 cities - I can't imagine how hard it will be to snuff out a top AI now! Too bad updates take so damn long to come through the Apple Store!
Seconding that, the new AI sounds a lot better and more dangerous. @Chaos Hero: Look at it from a positive angle, waiting 2 weeks or so gives us more time to learn the ropes On an unrelated note: I'm ill and put the guides on the backburner till I am feeling better. So most likely it'll be next week before I put up more. For now, I'm just playing for fun and experimenting with the different schools. Played an all-Biomancy game with the Darkelves, and now an all-Mentalism with Draconians. Both highly interesting and very different from my normal playstyle. E.g. the Biomancy game was the first where I really used the terrain changing spells. They did have a serious influence on what I did with my Mana: Mass-terraforming town areas does pay off. I even changed a long stretch of swamp between my towns, so my troops could travel faster.
We have submitted the build to the publisher. It is hard to tell when it will reach the Apple and finally when it will be available for you. I will let you know as soon as possible. Here is the changelog: -Fixed tiles corruption visual effect refresh from spells and events -Spells to research now have tactical/strategic icons -Fixed Healer's familiar -Tweaked initial state of loader bar -Damage hint will be shown when AI is attacking -Added possibility to end turn even if army/city/research notification is active -Fixed crash when opening 5th+ hero's eq from armies roster -Fixed crash when you unequipped too many items -Fixed roads low resolution texture -Fixed wrong costs for unit abilities -Decreased neutral factions turn processing time -Skeletons' upkeep cost increased to 1 mana, casting cost increased to 30 -Astral garrison works on all cities as intended -Regenerated / loaded dlc guardians are no longer "Settlerized" (changed to HM Settler unit) -Save/load performance improvements -Unhallowed lords can't buy mercenaries from Inns -Tweaked and adjusted AI personalities for all SLs -Fixed missing unit bonuses after load -Guardians are no longer fully healed after load -General performance tweaks -Improvements for AI casting strategic spells -AI diplomacy tweaks to avoid bad deals -Added "Send saves to developer" option -Fixed AI small features (chests) interaction -AI units production tweaks -Fixed game end score calculations -Fixed hero resurrection bug -Fixed: you could equip items on your dead hero if you opened forge eq before his death -Fixed terraforming spells -Fixed missing attacks and eq on simple unit panel -Fixed looped unit's walk sound -Fixed units animation speed save -Fixed hero multiple ability spells after level up -Fixed auras -Fixed "0" neutrals cities population growth -Changed minimal distance between cities -Fixed squared resources particles -Fixed return to main menu freeze -Fixed cities minimap sprites visible during load -Fixed army spawn height after rift interaction -Fixed freeze when loading from the world map -Increased overall stability -Decreased memory usage (even 150 MB on largest maps) BTW: I'm really sorry for the lack of new version of manual. I will try to post it as soon as possible. It is ready on my drive, I just need to format it.
@doomtrader: Repeating myself here no worries about the manual. You folks did an amazing job with the update, only natural that it hogs all resources. It's almost weekend, you should all go and take some well-deserved rest.
@doomtrader I cannot applaud you and the rest of the team enough. The fixes and adjustments are wonderful. However, I am even more impressed by the open communication with the game's fans from release through today. Getting questions answered, detailed notes and manuals, and feeling as though your voice is being heard all do a lot to keep a community alive. On my last game I focused on an Earth Mastery build and I could not get the Transmute spell (upgrade an ore) to work. Has anyone else had this problem? I also see it requires an upkeep of 3 mana. I'm wondering what exactly Transmute does to make it worth 3 mana per turn plus casting costs. I'm also curious if the Alchemists' Guild does anything besides provide 3 power per turn. The tooltip states, "The Alchemists' Guild makes use of any materials the city has access to," but I'm not sure if there's an actual effect besides the 3 power per turn. As always, thank you all and keep up the good work.
I wanted to buy this game but was thinking it was a bit expensive without any idea what it's like.. I love premium games though. I have kept an eye on this thread , and the dev seems excellent. I was allowed to help test via TestFlight and wow is this game cool. I will be purchasing for sure now.. I'm still trying to learn the game. Very nice to see quality games like this on the AppStore!
Have a new game now on turn 105, & have a feeling the large games are going to run very long.. Pretty much all cities for both me and the AI sits on 8+ units defence, mostly level 5+ units, with walls, so taking just a single city involves some effort, and everyone has plenty of cities. Diplomacy important too - having two AIs attacking me means a grave risk of loosing a city. I imagine playing hallowed must be difficult! Actually gonna give this game up as one of the AIs have twice as many cities as me and just declared war, going to have to find a better strategy to beat this!
@Tone1978 I'm glad you got to test the game so you could see it yourself. A big problem I am seeing (not necessarily including you) is people thinking this game is $33 because of the DLC. The base $13 dollar game is incredibly deep and in no way requires any DLC to be enjoyed for 50+ hours. There are few, if any, games that can match the base game's depth on a mobile device. I don't think anyone should buy the game and the DLC before playing a match. The extra content is there for people who will sink many hours into this game and are excited to support that developer. The more people that purchase the DLC the better, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy vanilla PC first. $13 for this amount content and developer support is a bargain. This isn't a $2.99 game you play for three hours, this is a game that will drain your battery from 100% to 0% many, many times.
@manneger: that's incredible AI improvement, three cheers for the awesome devs Now I'm really curious to see a breakdown of that game, could you give one?
I played dark elf, with fire magic mastery and merchant. Took 2 neutral cities fairly early, then focused on getting settlers for some DE cities to consolidate my teritory (neutral cities were a bit away from me). Went for the spell that gives +3 lvls to trained units and spammed thralls continuosly on my capital, building large garrisons of kvl 5 thralls everywhere. Had the two previously neutral cities (both human) on food production + housing to feed my army. Ran into a war with first AI i met fairly early on, but that AI was also in war with another AI so i could defend ok. The closest city of in-war-ai was in a good strategical position, but defended well (12 units+garrison, 6 of which were paladins) so i took another city first, then that city, lost half my main army in the process. Shortly after my friendly neighbor declared war... 100 turns - not too much happens when having to defend a lot and battles take plenty of time due to larger army sizes.
Does anyone else feel the significant power difference between the fighter heroes and the caster heroes, especially when starting with Mentor? I've started with the water caster twice... she uses Ice Storm (5x5 damage spell) and instantly wins fights against 15+ units. All I need to do are build a couple +20 mana items and I feel unstoppable. Fighter heroes never feel stronger than a single late game unit.
I agree! I think level ups for non-casting units always should give extra "all other units fight better" abilities or similar.
