[SEE THE PDF FILE IN THE ARCHIVE FOR ALL DETAILS OF THE MOD]

The name of this mod is an hommage to the Bulletin Board Station that was run by the hacker group called Mot¨orSoft Confederation, who were some of the
most talented people I’ve met in my life (Dr Mot¨orhead, Death Angel, Captain Kilroy, etc), thanks to whom I was introduced to Master of Magic and a plethora
of other computer games, and whose influence on my life cannot be overestimated. Hope you like it guys. Epicus, Doomicus, Metallicus.

100% of the mod is on tactical combat. Roughly, it can be split into three overlapping
sections: combat AI, terrain effects and unit abilities. There is no guarantee the mod
will work, let alone work alongside other mods. It started out as an attempt to add
a few new skills to reduce the predictability of combat, but as I dug deeper into the
logic of the game, I kept learning new tricks and adding new features, and couldn’t
stop myself until I essentially ended up part-overhauling the combat dynamics and AI.
Section 2 contains the installation instructions, Section 4 and Tables 1-8 explain the
main novelties of the mod. Section 5 explains the changes in the combat AI in greater
details, with Sections 6-8 providing further details for different types of units.

2 Installation Instructions

You need to delete powerTrainingData.bin file in
Steam\steamapps\common\Master-Of-Magic\ExternalAssets. Next, copy directories
AdditionalGraphics, Scripts and Database into
Steam\steamapps\common\Master-Of-Magic\ExternalAssets folder. This will NOT
overwrite any existing files, because all mod data is stored in new files and images. You
will have to start a new game though. There are no new units or races, buildings, etc,
so overland data is 100% the same.
Game Version 1.06.43 update, 14-03-23 New skill, (earth mover), and terrain
(mountain) have been factored in, see Table 5. The logic of pathfinding skill was
extended to combat.

3 Contact

I have a YouTube channel with the mod’s showcase, and you can contact me on Discord:
ResNet34#3061.

4 Summary

In short, AI is a lot less predictable now, plans ahead and works as an army rather
than a collection of units. New abilities and terrain features were not just coded, but
the AI factors them in when making decisions and evaluating units.

AI strategy

AI defending a walled city will stay behind the city walls and won’t
engage the enemy in melee unless it is overwhelmingly stronger than the opponent, or
the opponent breaks through the defences into the city. At the same time, ranged units
fire at the enemy and spells can be cast. Heavy siege weapons (catapults and steam
cannons) get additional attack bonuses, but cannot move.

Combat AI

Units work together to maximize total damage dealt to the enemy every
turn. The order, in which the units perform their actions is not fixed, as in the base
game, but depends on which unit is capable of producing most damage right now.
Ranged units predict possible damage next turn and save ammo when it’s unlikely to
cause real damage right now. Ranged units maneuver to find the best terrain and avoid
encirclement. Slow melee units prioritize targets that are within reach. Melee units are
capable of engaging more than one unit in one turn, if the unit evaluation dictates it.

New abilities and terrain

(Tables 4 and 5) Units use terrain to their advantage.
High terrain and forests can give them buffs, but can also make them vulnerable to
ranged attacks. Some ranged units start hidden and can ambush the enemy. Heavy
siege weapons (catapults and steam cannons) are more accurate now, but cannot move
during combat. Melee units gain flanking bonus when encircling the enemy unit.

Magic and races

(Tables 1-3) Races such as High Elves and Dwarves and Life
wizards on one side (Free Men of the West), and Nomads, Orcs, Undead, etc and
Death wizards on the other side (Servants of Evil) have various unit and army buffs
when fighting each other. The most important thing, for effects in Table 3 to take
effect, conditions in Tables 1-2 must be satisfied.

4.1 Miscellaneous

• Fire bolt and Fireball spells now have a 50% success chance, to improve the mana
efficiency
• I added a bit more time (1-2 seconds) between unit actions and battle turns,
otherwise they ‘overlap’ in a way: another unit started its action before the
previous one was over. Same applies to turns: AI starts moving even though the
‘Enemy turn’ or ‘Your turn’ (in case of autoplay) messages are still on the screen,
blocking the view.
• AI Resist Magic evaluation now only considers units with Resistance less than 10
• AI Guardian Wind evaluation now only considers visible enemy units with normal
(not boulder or magic) ranged attack and ammo,
• AI Prayer evaluation now considers unit values that factor in the positive effects
from the enchantment on the allies and negative on the enemy
• AI Counter Magic now checks whether the enemy units and Wizard can cast spells
• Siege weapons ability essentially overrides Long range. The only unit left with
Long Range ability is Warship.
• Icon for Free Men of the West is ‘The Triumph of Peresvet’ (2005), a painting by
Pavel Ryzhenko
• Icon for Ambush is ‘Saxon Ambush’ (2016), artwork by Robert McSweeney
• Other icons were either generated by free GANs/Autoencoders (neural networks),
such as Midjourney or Stable Diffusion, or drawn by my family members or obtained
on the internet in the free realm. I claim no ownership of any of these
images.