It's a kind of magic news

"For all those mac users! when you have trouble with the hitboxes, copy the skeleton_bodies.xml from the mod's data folder and paste it over warband data folder's skeleton_bodies.xml!

(Thanks to user hkajs)"

Greetings Warsword Conquest fans,

It has been a few months since our last update and during that time our modellers have been working on armours and apparels for our well known lords so that favourites such as Be’lakor, Arbaal the Undefeated and Heinrich Kemmler (to name a few) look closer to their real lore-friendly appearance. They have been working on other models too and also on lods for current models to help performance of the mod when full of our higher poly models. Some screenshots will follow to showcase some of the new lords.

On the coding front I have been focusing solely on magic for the last 6 months to try and get it into the mod in the best way to represent Warhammer Fantasy’s magic while keeping it within the mechanics and balancing requirements of Warband’s combat. I have tried to add all the spells in as accurately as possible, but some spells’ original effects had to be changed either for balancing purposes or because they couldn’t be well represented in the Warband envirnonment.

In terms of what magic casters are in the game, all real characters who cast magic on the tabletop cast spells in Warsword (yes, special lords are now even stronger) and each faction has 3 levels of casters with variations of that caster for each school available to them. Not every army will have a magic user in it, but many will.
Sorry dwarf fans but the rune guild will have to wait for the next update.

Note: Magic is for field battles only and not sieges for balancing reasons.

Here is a brief overview of how magic is going to work in the next update of Warsword Conquest:

AI vs Player:

AI’s and player’s magic works slightly different from each other. The player casts magic using their magic school’s activator (requires firearms proficiency to increase accuracy) to cast spells whereas for the AI will only use their activator for magic missile attacks. All other kinds of AI attacks are cast via script. I did this because a great deal of spells are augments and hexes and would benefit more from a decision-making AI than relying on the AI’s ranged targeting choices.
The AI will look at the battle circumstances before casting and try to choose the best spell for the situation.

In real terms, this makes one distinct difference. All AI casters will cast their spells at the very start of the magic phase while the player can cast at any time during the magic phase. This makes the AI much more efficient and deadly with the array of spells they have than if they used the activator for all.

New Magic Skill:

After the new Constitution skill, we’re going to introduce a second new skill in Warsword Conquest : the magic skill.
The higher your magic skill is, the more damage your spells will do and the larger radius your AoE (Area of Effect) spells will have and, in case you are casting a summoning spell, the better the troops you can summon. You will also regain mana faster and you’ll have a higher chance of making your casting roll.

The Magic Phase:

If there is a magic user in the battle, then the magic phase will be active and this will bring a new winds of magic strength number every 10 seconds. This number ranges from 1 – 8 and that is the amount of mana which casters regain (with bonuses for higher magic skill characters). If the winds of magic are at a 7 or an 8, then all casters are getting a +2 to their casting roll, while if it is a 1 they’re getting -2.

During each magic phase a caster may only cast 1 spell, with the exception of magic missile spells (which are normal Warband ranged attacks) that can be cast as many times as you have mana for.
At the end of the magic phase all spells’ effects (with one or two exceptions) are cancelled. This is the trade off for the player, who has the advantage of casting any time they like and in a more optimal place/situation, but the later they leave it in the phase the shorter time the effect will last.

Casting:

Each spell has a casting cost which the caster has to achieve equal to or better than on a D12 (plus a bonus for magic skill level) in order to successfully cast. If they cast it, then all affected troops who have magic resistance get a roll to resist the spell, in which case they will be uneffected.
If you fail a casting roll, you’re still going to lose 50% of the spell’s mana cost (which is the same as the casting cost) and you cannot attempt to cast again until the next magic phase.

There are penalties to the casting roll if you have a shield equipped (on back is ok) or if you are wearing too heavy armours.

Spell Types:

Magic Missile: An usual Warband ranged attack although some have bonuses

Radius From Caster: These AoE spells use the caster’s position as the center and usually require the caster to be close the action. These are more common in schools that don’t have a magic missile spell.

Radius Ranged: These AoE spells are a mix of the previous two kinds of spells and use the spot where the spell landed as the center of the radius.

Summon: A successful cast of these spells will summon troops in close proximity to the caster.

Learning magic:

The player can learn only one school of magic from a list of schools available to their race (the ability to change schools will not be in this release) and they can learn them by visiting the Wizards’ Guild via the town menus. As the player goes up in magic skill and has the appropriate gold, more spells will be available for learning.

Once you have learnt a spell, it will appear as a scroll in your inventory (these are unlootable) and the way you organise them in your inventory from the top left will establish the order they scroll through when selecting them in battle.

In battle you can toggle through your spells using the V and B buttons. Then, firing your activator, it will attempt to cast the chosen spell, which is displayed in the top left hand corner along with your mana. If you have already cast a spell or do not have enough mana available the spell will not activate.

If you would like to read about the schools of magic, what spells they have and their lore attributes then download this text file here..

Filedropper.com

So when is it ready?

We are a while off of release yet. As I have been exclusively looking at magic for most of the year, I haven’t looked at issues such as sea battles or how to reduce the map lag yet. I want to add 10 more events before release and GSanders (Phosphor1) is yet to return to look at his side of the coding. Moreover, the magic’s coding still has work to be done as well.

Another major workload we have is modelling as we mentioned in the last update. We have some new modellers which are fantastic, but with all the new magic troops who all need equipment made, as well as some effects and models for the spells themselves, there is still much to do on the modelling front.

No date can be given yet but rest assured we will continue to work as hard as we have been throughout all of 2017. Hopefully some more precise news will come when closer to the Christmas period.

Thanks for reading and for your continued support of Warsword Conquest.

Nameless Warrior