HOMM2 - Level 5 Spell Distribution for Wizards
Rollin Baker
At popular demand (amazing to me, anyway), here's the numbers I
came up for for level 5 spell distribution in 100 Wizard Castles. Note it
comes with a caveat: Since you can't get the same spell twice, the list is
bound to be, to that extent, skewed. Looking at the results, it doesn't
matter much, though...
Spell # /200 %
------------- ------ -----
Armageddon 37 18.5
Dimension Door 38 19.0
Hypnotize 38 19.0
Mirror Image 30 15.0
Resurrection True 32 16.0
Summon AE 7 3.5
Summon EE 2 1.0
Summon FE 2 1.0
Summon WE 6 3.0
Town Portal 8 4.0
Rollin
George Ruof
rol...@eql12.caltech.edu (Rollin Baker) wrote:
The percentage chance for a spell to be available also varies by town type. So
a wizrd might have a 20% change for armageddon and a Knight might only have a
10% chance. Just something else to think about. :)
George
-----------------------------------------------------------------
George Ruof gr...@pacificnet.net
Senior Programmer gr...@nwcomputing.com
New World Computing http://www.nwcomputing.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
John Mueller
Those are pretty amazing results <g>. The spells you get are definitely
skewed. It would be nice if you had an equal chance of getting all of
them. Maybe they'll fix that problem in the next release of the
HOMM2--I hope so anyway.
John Mueller
Jonathan MUN
I think NWC purposely skewed the random spell allocations. Some lvl 5
spells are far more useful and powerful than others. Basically, the
greater the usefulness of the spell, the harder it is to obtain (I
believe). This makes sense to me. Have you seen what you can do with
the "Town Portal" spell? Very nasty in a large game.
Cheers,
Jon.
Sebastien Patenaude
George Ruof wrote:
>
> rol...@eql12.caltech.edu (Rollin Baker) wrote:
>
> > At popular demand (amazing to me, anyway), here's the numbers I
> >came up for for level 5 spell distribution in 100 Wizard Castles. Note it
> >comes with a caveat: Since you can't get the same spell twice, the list is
> >bound to be, to that extent, skewed. Looking at the results, it doesn't
> >matter much, though...
> >
> > Spell # /200 %
> > ------------- ------ -----
> > Armageddon 37 18.5
> > Dimension Door 38 19.0
> > Hypnotize 38 19.0
> > Mirror Image 30 15.0
> > Resurrection True 32 16.0
> > Summon AE 7 3.5
> > Summon EE 2 1.0
> > Summon FE 2 1.0
> > Summon WE 6 3.0
> > Town Portal 8 4.0
>
> The percentage chance for a spell to be available also varies by town type. So
> a wizrd might have a 20% change for armageddon and a Knight might only have a
> 10% chance. Just something else to think about. :)
I was wondering George, do you know more about this than you let on ?
;-) If you know the statistics about spell distribution, why not share
this with your friends on the newsgroup...
---------------)-- The Quebec Dragon
Robert Olesen
No, I haven't. I tried using it to ease my travel with little success,
as it always takes a hero to the closest castle. Dimension Door is
extremely useful for this. I was probably being unimaginative. How are
you using it?
Robert Olesen.
George Ruof
Robert Olesen <ol...@dnv.com> wrote:
>Jonathan MUN wrote:
>> I think NWC purposely skewed the random spell allocations. Some lvl 5
>> spells are far more useful and powerful than others. Basically, the
>> greater the usefulness of the spell, the harder it is to obtain (I
>> believe). This makes sense to me. Have you seen what you can do with
>> the "Town Portal" spell? Very nasty in a large game.
>No, I haven't. I tried using it to ease my travel with little success,
>as it always takes a hero to the closest castle. Dimension Door is
>extremely useful for this. I was probably being unimaginative. How are
>you using it?
Town Gate takes you to the nearest castle, Town Portal gives you a list of all
your castles and lets you choose which one to go to. You can put together some
great armies very quickly if you get it.
Nan Wang
Robert Olesen (ol...@dnv.com) wrote:
: Jonathan MUN wrote:
: >
: > I think NWC purposely skewed the random spell allocations. Some lvl 5
: > spells are far more useful and powerful than others. Basically, the
: > greater the usefulness of the spell, the harder it is to obtain (I
: > believe). This makes sense to me. Have you seen what you can do with
: > the "Town Portal" spell? Very nasty in a large game.
: > Cheers,
: >
: > Jon.
: No, I haven't. I tried using it to ease my travel with little success,
: as it always takes a hero to the closest castle. Dimension Door is
: extremely useful for this. I was probably being unimaginative. How are
: you using it?
: Robert Olesen.
Robert, I think you are talking about the Town Gate spell, which takes you
to the closest castle. Town Portal on the other hand ... Yes, it is so
very powerful I think we should scrap it altogether.
Linxiang Zou
In article <33155F...@dnv.com>, ol...@dnv.com writes...
>Jonathan MUN wrote:
>>
>> John Mueller wrote:
>> >
>> > Those are pretty amazing results <g>. The spells you get are definitely
>> > skewed. It would be nice if you had an equal chance of getting all of
>> > them. Maybe they'll fix that problem in the next release of the
>> > HOMM2--I hope so anyway.
>> >
>> > John Mueller
>>
>> spells are far more useful and powerful than others. Basically, the
>> greater the usefulness of the spell, the harder it is to obtain (I
>> believe). This makes sense to me. Have you seen what you can do with
>> the "Town Portal" spell? Very nasty in a large game.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Jon.
>
>No, I haven't. I tried using it to ease my travel with little success,
>as it always takes a hero to the closest castle. Dimension Door is
>extremely useful for this. I was probably being unimaginative. How are
>you using it?
>
>Robert Olesen.
In a large/XL map, once you have it, the game is over.
R-Click on town gate gives you error help info...
Rollin Baker
>> the "Town Portal" spell? Very nasty in a large game.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Jon.
>
>No, I haven't. I tried using it to ease my travel with little success,
>as it always takes a hero to the closest castle. Dimension Door is
>extremely useful for this. I was probably being unimaginative. How are
>you using it?
>
>Robert Olesen.
That is Town GATE, Town Portal will take you to your choice of any castle
or town you control, allowing you to amass immense forces on a single hero
that can instantly be wherever needed to repel possible attacks by enemy
heros. Its all over but the shouting...
Rollin
Robert Olesen
> >> spells are far more useful and powerful than others. Basically, the
> >> greater the usefulness of the spell, the harder it is to obtain (I
> >> the "Town Portal" spell? Very nasty in a large game.
>
> >as it always takes a hero to the closest castle. Dimension Door is
> >extremely useful for this. I was probably being unimaginative. How are
> >you using it?
>
> your castles and lets you choose which one to go to. You can put together some
> great armies very quickly if you get it.
>
> George
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> George Ruof gr...@pacificnet.net
> Senior Programmer gr...@nwcomputing.com
> New World Computing http://www.nwcomputing.com
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, I can see the importance of Town Portal. It might be too powerful.
I haven't had it - or perhaps just not realised it's potential and thus
not used it. I certainly will, if/when I get it next.
Robert.
John M Clancy
George Ruof wrote:
>
> Town Gate takes you to the nearest castle, Town Portal gives you a list of all
> your castles and lets you choose which one to go to. You can put together some
> great armies very quickly if you get it.
That's great but I have never seen the town portal spell.
I played through both campaigns and about 60 games and
I have never seen it. I got the town gate spell once.
Maybe if you made the spell use all the heroes movement
so he could only use it once per turn. Or maybe make
it use alot more spell points it would still be powerful
but not enough to need to make it so rare.
--
John M Clancy
"Those that give up freedom for safety deserve neither"
-Benjamin Franklin
Descent Win95 Desktop Themes: http://members.aol.com/mefent/descent
Phaedrus
In article <3313E0...@alphalink.com.au>,
Jonathan MUN <e...@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
>John Mueller wrote:
>> Those are pretty amazing results <g>. The spells you get are definitely
>> skewed. It would be nice if you had an equal chance of getting all of
>> them. Maybe they'll fix that problem in the next release of the
>> HOMM2--I hope so anyway.
>spells are far more useful and powerful than others. Basically, the
>greater the usefulness of the spell, the harder it is to obtain (I
>believe). This makes sense to me. Have you seen what you can do with
>the "Town Portal" spell? Very nasty in a large game.
If this was New World's logic, then it's arguably very poor game design,
and I hope they change things in the future.
Wizards of the Coast went through the same phase with the Magic card
game. The initial printings included some cards that were _much_ more
powerful than the others (powerful enough that they soon had to be restricted,
then banned, to restore some semblance of game balance). WotC's logic
behing doing this was more or less "Well, as long as we make the cards rare,
how much of an impact can they have?" Well, the answer was, "A lot." Making
them rare actually compounded the problem, rather than minimizing it; because,
since the cards were rare, having one gave you a huge advantage over your
opponent, since it was unlikely that they would have a similar card of their
own. Of course, this "mistake" led people to buy suitcases full of cards to
try to get the rare ones, so I doubt they'd do it all that differently if they
had it to do over. :-)
The same goes in HOMM; if some spells (like Town Portal) are much more
powerful than the others, then making them rare is arguably both (a) boring
(why bother to implement a spell that almost never comes up in play?), and (b)
counterproductive (since it raises the effective power of the spell even
further when it _does_ come up, since the odds are that none of the opponents
will have it). The solution to the problem of an overpowered spell is to
reduce the power of the spell, rather than reducing its frequency.
--
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Nan Wang
Phaedrus (phae...@halcyon.com) wrote:
: The same goes in HOMM; if some spells (like Town Portal) are much more
: powerful than the others, then making them rare is arguably both (a) boring
: (why bother to implement a spell that almost never comes up in play?), and (b)
: counterproductive (since it raises the effective power of the spell even
: further when it _does_ come up, since the odds are that none of the opponents
: will have it). The solution to the problem of an overpowered spell is to
: reduce the power of the spell, rather than reducing its frequency.
It's different in HOMM2. Once you have it, everybody can have it. I don't
see what is so bad with the spell distribution with HOMM2. I say leave it
as it is and in fact I would say we should restrict some spells even more.
Daniel DuBois
On 5 Mar 1997 14:08:38 -0800, phae...@halcyon.com (Phaedrus) wrote:
> The same goes in HOMM; if some spells (like Town Portal) are much more
>powerful than the others, then making them rare is arguably both (a) boring
>(why bother to implement a spell that almost never comes up in play?), and (b)
>counterproductive (since it raises the effective power of the spell even
>further when it _does_ come up, since the odds are that none of the opponents
>will have it). The solution to the problem of an overpowered spell is to
>reduce the power of the spell, rather than reducing its frequency.
I tend to agree with your analysis, despite someone else's followup to this
post that points out spells can be acquired by taking over castles.
If a spell occurs so infrequently that 1) I never get to enjoy its presence
and 2) my brain is incapable of handling the strategy implications when it
eventually does come up -- then it add's no fun value to the game.
-----
Daniel DuBois, Traveling Coderman www.spyglass.com/~ddubois
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Rollin Baker
In the discussion of Spell Restriction (which I am NOT in favor
of, btw. Although, that being said, neither am I in favor of lessening the
power of the spells.), a curious thought occurred to me:
Ever seen a computer hero USE Town Portal? Ever seen one use
Town Gate? I've seen them DDoor, and I've seen them set Guardians and use
other level 5 spells if they have them (Armageddeon, tediously, if they have
it - as soon as they even START to lose the fight they go for the phyrrhic
defeat). I've never seen them cast Summon Boat, either. Has anyone?
Phil and George: Are there spells the computer simply doesn't use?
Either by design or happenstance?
I'd be interested in knowing...
Rollin
Peter Ginsberg
For the record, I like rare spells, it adds a little spice to an occasional
game, and no one ever said everything has to be entirely level. MTG is all
about rarity so I dont understand your comments there. I dont think town
portal utterly unbalances the game, its a lucky break, theres plenty of
unlucky breaks to, its adds variety. Anyway, just want to add a voice to
the side that I think they did a fine job, and I would be sad if the spell
rarity was changed.
On 5 Mar 1997,
Phaedrus wrote:
> The same goes in HOMM; if some spells (like Town Portal) are much more
> powerful than the others, then making them rare is arguably both (a) boring
> (why bother to implement a spell that almost never comes up in play?), and (b)
> counterproductive (since it raises the effective power of the spell even
> further when it _does_ come up, since the odds are that none of the opponents
> will have it). The solution to the problem of an overpowered spell is to
> reduce the power of the spell, rather than reducing its frequency.
Scott Zou
naw...@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Nan Wang) wrote:
>Phaedrus (phae...@halcyon.com) wrote:
>: The same goes in HOMM; if some spells (like Town Portal) are much more
>: powerful than the others, then making them rare is arguably both (a) boring
>: (why bother to implement a spell that almost never comes up in play?), and (b)
>: counterproductive (since it raises the effective power of the spell even
>: further when it _does_ come up, since the odds are that none of the opponents
>: will have it). The solution to the problem of an overpowered spell is to
>: reduce the power of the spell, rather than reducing its frequency.
>It's different in HOMM2. Once you have it, everybody can have it. I don't
>see what is so bad with the spell distribution with HOMM2. I say leave it
>as it is and in fact I would say we should restrict some spells even more.
There is nothing wrong in restricting some spells. But, at least to
me, the LEVEL of spell is suppose to do that...
Nan Wang
Scott Zou (z...@flash.net) wrote:
: naw...@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Nan Wang) wrote:
Well, that would work if there are hundreds of level 5 spells to choose from,
but there isn't. I think this little bit of randomness enhances game play,
not that I ever got a chance to use them mind you. I rarely build my towers
beyond level 2.
Phil Steinmeyer
rol...@eql12.caltech.edu (Rollin Baker) wrote:
>Rollin
The AI does not use Town Portal, Town Gate, or the Teleport Spell in
combat.
Phil Steinmeyer
President - PopTop Software
Programmer/Designer - Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and 2
Rollin Baker
In article <5fqcr2$ekf$1...@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>, d...@yallara.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Dean Christopher Farmer) writes...
>rol...@eql12.caltech.edu (Rollin Baker) writes:
>
>Ever seen the computer use blind????
>I haven't. Pity, such a powerful spell too.
Thinking about it, I haven't either. Or Paralyze, for that matter...
>
>Dean Farmer.
>d...@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au
>
>
>>Rollin
>--
>************************************
>Dean C. Farmer.
>3rd Year Info. Systems Science & Eng.
>RMIT University. Melbourne Australia.
Sebastien Patenaude
Peter Ginsberg wrote:
>
> For the record, I like rare spells, it adds a little spice to an occasional
> game, and no one ever said everything has to be entirely level. MTG is all
> about rarity so I dont understand your comments there. I dont think town
> portal utterly unbalances the game, its a lucky break, theres plenty of
> unlucky breaks to, its adds variety. Anyway, just want to add a voice to
> the side that I think they did a fine job, and I would be sad if the spell
> rarity was changed.
I thought I would add my two cents to this interesting discussion. Imho,
I love rare spells, but some are much too rare (Visions). A slightly
higher percentage for the rarer spells would be very appreciated. I
would like to see Town Portal once and Summon Elementals more often :-)
I'm not in favor of the completely random spell allocation, but an
higher chance of getting certain spells at certain castles (Deahtwave at
Necromancer) is a good idea that should be kept.
----------------)-- The Quebec Dragon
Rollin Baker
In article <5fs3cn$4...@opus.anet-stl.com>, pst...@anet-stl.com (Phil Steinmeyer) writes...
>rol...@eql12.caltech.edu (Rollin Baker) wrote:
>The AI does not use Town Portal, Town Gate, or the Teleport Spell in
>combat.
>
>Phil Steinmeyer
>President - PopTop Software
>Programmer/Designer - Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and 2
Thanks, Phil, I suspected as much.
Rollin
Thomas Palm
Rollin Baker wrote:
> I've never seen them cast Summon Boat, either. Has anyone?
Yes! I once got a hero stranded on an island that way. He didn't
have summon boat himself :-(
Phaedrus
In article <5fs3cn$4...@opus.anet-stl.com>,
Phil Steinmeyer <pst...@anet-stl.com> wrote:
>The AI does not use Town Portal, Town Gate, or the Teleport Spell in
>combat.
On one level, this is unfortunate; but I can certainly see why this would
be the case. In a game that covers as broad a territory as HOMM2, it can be
difficult enough to design an AI that considers all the things within physical
movement range and completes in a reasonable time. If you want the AI to use
teleportation effects like these intelligently, then it suddenly has to
consider the entire board, not just the situation immediately surrounding the
hero; and that could be a _huge_ time hit, unless you just want to use it in
a braindead, "well-I-don't-see-anything-interesting-to-do-around-here-so-
I'll-teleport-somewhere-and-hope-things-are-more-interesting-there" kinda way.
Richard Wesson
On the other hand, it _does_ use Dimension Door, so complete flexibility
of movement isn't totally too hard for it to deal with.
-- Richard Wesson
(wes...@cse.ogi.edu)
Phaedrus
In article <5gf95k$5...@reuter.cse.ogi.edu>,
Richard Wesson <wes...@church.cse.ogi.edu> wrote:
>On the other hand, it _does_ use Dimension Door, so complete flexibility
>of movement isn't totally too hard for it to deal with.
Maybe I just haven't played enough HOMM lately, but doesn't Dimension
Door have a much more limited range than the other teleportation effects?