Worlds of Magic 1.0 released

[tgb]

Yeah, and this thread seems to indicate the developers are trying.

I get the impression that they tried to get WoM on GOG, but GOG refused it.

[DennisS]

I just picked up Planar Conquest, and I have to say, to this point I like it a lot.

VERY reminiscent of MoM, which is one of my top five games of all time. OK...Railroad Tycoon 2, Civ 4, Master of Magic, X-Com: Enemy Unknown, and about a hundred others tied for fifth.

[tgb]

So I started a game "for real" this morning, medium map, normal difficulty, 3 planes, playing as High Men and using a pre-created Sorceress who specialized in Life (healing & buffs) magic.  After 20 turns I saved with two major observations.

1) Auto explore - AI is OK, making a bee-line for any goody chests in it's sight.  It ignores all other icons which is good and bad, because it ignored a "lost tribe" that gave me a population boost when it was landed on.  My one niggle is that it tends to go for the coast first before working it's way inland, and I would prefer it explore the area surrounding my first city before it did anything else.  Of course, if it was me, I'd prefer to go to the beach, too.

2) Casting spells (overland) - Here we have a big problem with the interface, especially for a game based on MoM.  I started with a spell that doubled food production in any one city so I wanted to cast it ASAP in order to move a pop or 2 over to research or construction.  First thing I discovered was that you can't cast a spell directly onto the strategic map.  Here's what I had to do in order to cast the "Good Harvest" (or whatever it's called) spell:

Click spell book
Click on Good Harvest
Wait a turn for the spell to be prepared (this is standard in most games of this nature, so I'm not counting it as a strike)
Click on either Save (prepared spells can be saved to be cast at a later time.  I don't know if there's a time limit.) or Proceed
Select the target from a list of cities (Remember, at this point I only have one) The game then zooms to the city on the map where I have to
Select the target AGAIN from the list.
Select CAST (finally).

Did you count the clicks?  I did. 6, not counting spell prep time.  This should have been done in 3 - open book, cast or save spell, click on map.   There's no excuse for this.

[tgb]

While auto-exploring a couple of my guys open chests that gave them XP.  They've gone from Lev 1 to Lev 3, and I noticed that only by accident.  There's no notification when a unit hits a new level, or even what it does. I think their attack values have increased, but I can't even say that for sure.

Taxes need to be better balanced.  Starting out, increasing your tax rate by as little at .5 (the minimum) doubles unrest in your cities.

[tgb]

I'm pretty sure I just hit a game-killing bug.  In one turn the amount of mana going towards spellcasting went form +10 to -8/turn, with no indication as to the cause.  The only change to the world map was the completion of an Armory, which only has upkeep in gold (supposedly).

I think I'm out for now.

[Huw the Poo]

This is the planar conquest version you're playing, right tgb?

[tgb]

Correct.

[Freyland]

I'm pretty sure I just hit a game-killing bug.  In one turn the amount of mana going towards spellcasting went form +10 to -8/turn, with no indication as to the cause.  The only change to the world map was the completion of an Armory, which only has upkeep in gold (supposedly).

I think I'm out for now.

Perhaps someone cast a global spell affecting mana collection?

[tgb]

I just finished replying over at OO, heh.  Here's what I said:

Then there still should have been some sort of notification.   

Actually there is a screen showing all global enchantments, and all it showed was that two "unknown" sorcerers had cast something to increase their range of vision.

I may go back to an earlier save later today and see if I can reproduce it and figure out what the hell happened.

[Wolfe1759]

I don't know...it just seems their history with games (not just this one) is release something, support it for a short period of time, and then move on....if folks are ok with that and like what they get, then that is OK...but for me, just don't trust them at this point, but who knows, maybe they will turn a corner someday.

+1

Wonder how long it will take them to release Planes of Magic the next game in the "series" i.e they will release 1-2 patches for this iteration of the game, give up because it's still not really fixed but then release their next attempt at a patch as a new game.

[-budd-]

i gave up after Storm over the Pacific, although i have a couple of others i got in bundles. Pattern seems pretty clear at this point.

[tgb]

Turns out it wasn't a bug after all - it was my misinterpretation of mana being used to power a spell I was casting.

I played a bit longer and may have turtled a bit too much, and wandering mobs have show up and are attacking my one city on a regular basis.  I have a pretty good army garrisoned, but combat is the same lackluster affair is was in WoM, so it's tough to get too engaged.

Tomorrow is payday for me, and I hear TW:Warhammer calling my name louder and louder.

[Freyland]

I'm glad to hear it, tgb.  I have yet to play the game, and I was underwhelmed by WoM, but I really want these guys to succeed with this game.  As pointed out by a reviewer on Steam, "if they win [with a good game], we both win!"  I also haven't played TW:W yet, but maybe once the AC is fixed.  I have heard it runs hot on Nvidia cards, so perhaps having it 84 degrees in the house would not be so helpful!  :-\

[Anguille]

Being one of the kickstarter i have now both games....but i haven't installed one yet.....

[gameleaper]

I want this game because of MoM but waiting for gog version, so I'm glad now I missed the upgrading and re-branding, but I still want it