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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted February 09, 2016 09:38 PM |
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Is it useful for smaller maps, really?
If you look at my math in page 6 in this thread, you can see that the most you get is 1 level above heroes without Learning and you use a skill slot for just that 1 stat point.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted February 09, 2016 11:06 PM |
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5% learning specialty won't make it particular useful.. e.g. level 20 and you get 30% in stead of 15%.. if 15% at most gives 1 level, I doubt 30% will give 2 at any point after 20 then..
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted February 09, 2016 11:53 PM |
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Actually I did the math for Kinkeria too. She get 10%/20%/30% bonus xp from Learning, which results in 1 and very rarely 2 levels above no Learning. Still using a skill and speciality for 1-2 stat points is not worth it.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted February 10, 2016 09:59 AM |
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I'm starting to "hate" the good might skill specialties, I find them brainless. If you are battleing with Solmyr there will be situations where you think "Why am I going to cast Chain Lightning? Is pretty worthless...", in the case of Crag and copycats I from time to time think, "Why am I using so many slots of shotters in this guy? He is way better in close combat." but that's all. You think about it when Dessa faces the same odds Gundula did sometime ago and the battle is running much worst...
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markmasters
Famous Hero
Dragon of justice
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posted March 08, 2016 02:26 PM |
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I think Learning is a 'noob trap'.
15% bonus XP sounds good on paper, but once you reached lvl 25 with 15% bonus xp....your still lvl 25, It's such a waste
I used to pick learning because I thought leveling up was important to stay ahead, just like it is with many RPG's
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted March 08, 2016 06:24 PM |
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Well Learning could be important and I wish it was, but that 1 stat point is a waste of skill, like I have said a couple of times already.
I guess you could call it a "Noob trap".
I guess Loynis deserves to start with that horrible skill because of Prayer speciaility, but the others definitely don't.
I can't find a good reason to ever pick this skill, ai will however, which will make it weak.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted March 09, 2016 01:13 PM |
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phoenix4ever said:
I can't find a good reason to ever pick this skill, ai will however, which will make it weak.
AI doesn't "pick" skills, is quite a random process; from the skills available that you don't have randomly choose one, from the skills you have and aren't expert randomly choose one, then flip coin to see wich will advance.
This is counter intuitive I know but I think it is also the reason why they introduced the Wisdom and Magic Schools exceptions.
AI doesn't evaluate the value of a skill as we do, for computer skill number 26 or skill 0, they all eight the same. That's why they have different probabilities of appearing acording to each hero's class.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted March 09, 2016 05:48 PM |
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Yeah you are right, ai does'nt pick skills, but it will often end up with crappy skills because it's random.
I wonder how it determines which skills to buy at a university though?
A hero with Learning, First Aid and Eagle Eye is not a good hero, humans know this, but ai does'nt know the value of skills. I bet almost every human would always pick Wisdom, Earth Magic and Logistics, but there is a good chance ai won't (because it's random)
I guess I just wish the ai was better, even at impossible it's usually pretty easy, at least in my map.
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted March 09, 2016 07:51 PM |
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Are we even sure AI Heroes use the University to learn skills? Would be a nice thing to set up a trial map and see.
Come to think of it, what does the AI do with the Magic University in Conflux towns? Would it haphazardly buy Magic Skills from it, or check and see which spells the Hero already knows before he does so?
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted March 09, 2016 08:07 PM |
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I tested the University with an ai ally a while ago and it seems to usually buy 1-2 skills, I have no idea what determines what it buys though, that might be random as well?
Regarding Conflux' Magic University I guess it can and will buy magic schools, but in my experience magic schools are rarely chosen by ai. Sometimes they won't even have Wisdom after they max their skills.
Btw congratulations with becoming a moderator Maurice. 
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted March 09, 2016 08:24 PM |
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I'm inclined to run a few tests of my own on this one . When I do, I'll report my findings here.
And thanks, Phoenix .
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted March 09, 2016 11:01 PM |
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Never thought about the universities but I think there is worst, I'm convinced AI doesn't "know" how to use combination artifacts. How many times have you assembled Cloack? Even if from time to time you can find one in AI's hands, when did you ever faced an army of thousands of liches?
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted March 10, 2016 01:04 AM |
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The chosen skills seem to depend on preference. I've just made a small map with a fully upgraded Conflux town and 2 external universities. Since there were just two islands in the sea, apparently the AI valued Navigation. Whenever it popped up in the Universities, it would pick up that particular skill. It also always picked up Offense and Armorer, whenever present. It seemed to ignore skills like Wisdom, Learning and Artillery.
As for Magic skills, it only picked those with Magic Heroes, not with Might Heroes as far as I could see. And in those cases, it would only pick Earth and Water, though sometimes just Water. I forgot to check the Mage guild and see which spells it had though; this was just some preliminary testing.
As a side note, I think I discovered something which may be a bug in Conflux towns. Having set an AI player to ally, I could visit his town by double clicking on it, while his Hero was in the visiting Hero slot. I could then buy the Magic Skills from the Magic University for that AI Hero  .
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted March 10, 2016 08:37 AM |
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This is interesting Maurice.
I guess there is some reason the way it picks it's skills.
Navigation because there was water on the map.
Water Magic because of Summon Boat (Scuttle Boat and Water Walk)
Earth Magic because plenty of good reasons really. 
Nice to hear it always picks Offense and Armorer although I don't think that was the case in my test.
Good that it stayed away from Learning, though it picked Learning from a University in my test.
Good that magic heroes picks Wisdom and Magic Schools, but might heroes need both as well...
@Bloodsucker Yeah it seems very rare for ai the have combi artifacts, I don't think it actively tries to collect the needed artifacts and trade them between heroes, it's just lucky if it ends up with one.
And I have never seen ai with thousands of liches, which is certainly possible with the cloak.
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted March 10, 2016 10:30 AM |
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Edited by Maurice at 10:31, 10 Mar 2016.
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phoenix4ever said:
This is interesting Maurice.
I guess there is some reason the way it picks it's skills.
Navigation because there was water on the map.
Water Magic because of Summon Boat (Scuttle Boat and Water Walk)
And that's the fun part: I had put another AI on a separate island, so I could team up with that particular AI. To prevent any form of interaction, I disabled everything that could allow the AI to leave the island on which they started: anything to do with access to water (Summon Boat, Water Walk) as well as through air (Dimension Door, Fly). Also disabled shipyards in all towns, which were off the coast anyway, but just to be sure.
Another funny observation: the AI knows in advance which skills are in a University. During several tries, one of the Universities held no skills of interest and he simply ignored them, he didn't visit it then. I only checked after waiting a few AI turns to see which skills were in the University, just to avoid the AI from learning which skills there are, from me as allied player; I believe when an allied player visits a Witch Hut, you also get to see which skill can be found there on mouse-over afterwards, so I guessed it worked the same with Universities, with the AI learning about it. I guess it knows right from the start.
I'm guessing the AI also knows about Witch Huts in advance. I plan to make a test map with 26 Witch Huts, one for each skill, and see which ones the AI Heroes visit. I'll make sure to clean their starting skills too, so it starts off clean slate. I wonder if it will pick the same skills consistently. It's a pity you can't pre-set a University.
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The last Reasonable Steward of Good Game Design and a Responsible Hero of HC. - Verriker
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted March 10, 2016 01:34 PM |
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Hmm guess it did'nt choose Water Magic for Summon Boat and Water Walk then.
I made some tests about Universities and Witch Huts a while ago and as far as I can remember my ai ally sometimes skipped the University, so it might know what's offered already, but I'm not sure about the Witch Huts, it seemed to visit them always, no matter if Learning or Earth Magic or any other skill was offered.
But I guess Universities and Witch Huts could need some more testing.
Looking forward to hear your results.
I also wish you could costumize Universities.
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BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 10, 2016 02:29 PM |
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Quote:
I believe when an allied player visits a Witch Hut, you also get to see which skill can be found there on mouse-over afterwards, so I guessed it worked the same with Universities
In my experience with allies, Witch's huts are identified when visited by your ally, but not magic universities.
As a side-bar not related to this discussion...why are certain skills never found in Witch's huts? Earth and Water magic, Offense and Armorer are the four I have never found in hundreds of games. Every other skill including Necromancy (not often), but never the four mentioned...
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted March 10, 2016 03:00 PM |
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BlackMagik said:
As a side-bar not related to this discussion...why are certain skills never found in Witch's huts? Earth and Water magic, Offense and Armorer are the four I have never found in hundreds of games. Every other skill including Necromancy (not often), but never the four mentioned...
By default, Witch Huts are set to offer one skill randomly chosen from all skills except Leadership and Necromancy. The random choice is determined when the map is started and remains the same throughout that playthrough. But unlike Universities, map makers can make a selection of skills from which one is picked randomly to be offered. This can be a set skill (one specific chosen out of the entire list of skills) or any combination of skills possible - including Leadership and/or Necromancy.
That you never found those four is based on either a preset selection of possible skills or just bad luck.
You can test it yourself rather easily, too, by the way. Simply create a small test map and place some 60 Witch Huts on it. Then play the map and visit each with your Heroes. You should see all skills (except Leadership and Necromancy, if you didn't change the offered skillset in the map editor).
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The last Reasonable Steward of Good Game Design and a Responsible Hero of HC. - Verriker
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BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 10, 2016 04:57 PM |
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Quote:
By default, Witch Huts are set to offer one skill randomly chosen from all skills except Leadership and Necromancy.
Very odd because I commonly find Leadership, and on rare occasions, Necromancy And I've done no editing to any of the maps.
Quote:
That you never found those four is based on either a preset selection of possible skills or just bad luck
Can't be either [unless I have the worst luck of the millennium].
I've played on a wide variety of random maps and hundreds of games and never ever found any of those four skills in a Witch's Hut [with a caveat on Earth Magic which I have found during the course of a campaign...once.]
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Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
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posted March 10, 2016 05:09 PM |
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Well, fire up the editor and place a Witch Hut. Check the properties to see which skills are included in the pool to randomly draw from. Leadership and Necromancy are flagged off, the rest is on .
Could it be that when you generate a random map, there's an underlaying template dictating Witch Hut skill probabilities?
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The last Reasonable Steward of Good Game Design and a Responsible Hero of HC. - Verriker
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This thread is pages long: 
