CALCULATION GUIDE - A true vantage master does not rely on fortune - No more moonshine in this FAQ. Let's get started. MAGIC STONE AND MAGIC POINT MP recovery per hour = Summoner's original magic power X (2 + number of magic stone owned) MP spent per hour = total magic maintenance cost by all natials. Net MP gain per hour = MP recovery per hour - MP spent per hour case study : 1. At level 50, Rokurou has magic power 10, gets 10 magic stones; The Psychic has magic power 24, gets 4 magic stones. Both of them have 3 Lobster kings. Rokurou recovers 75 MP, and the Psychic recovers 99 MP in this hour. 2. If Net MP gain is negative, natials at the top in move sequence will be destroyed first. Natials will be destroyed up to their total cost which is barely larger than negative gain. e.g Your summoner gains -40 MP at 9:00 o'clock. 3 balance dolls (first 3 units ready to move) will be destroyed. No repayments for the extra 8 MP. 3. The MP recovery rate is the same for summoner being upgraded, downgraded or in normal state. The formula only accounts the original magic power of summoner. MOVE TYPE EXPLANATION There are 7 differents move type walk, swim, walk (swim), swim (walk), walk + swim, fly, fly + swim, dragon walk Different move type can have different move consumption on different terrains. The magics, Dragon of Drought, Dragon of Flood can alter the terrains. If an unit stands on the terrain which does not allow the unit to stay. It receive 3 HP penalty per each turn. Try to move off if possible. (If it is surrounded by terrains who cannot move across, it must stay when WAIT - can change their face direction) If units step on corrosive land, 3 HP will be deducted per turn. For walk, swim type (cannot fly), climbing up an uphill terrain spend one more move for all terrains. See the following terrain consumption table for detail. Numbers in brackets are land effects. Number outside bracket is water depth. DF - Dragon's footstep X - cannot pass and stay MS - Magic stone * - can pass, but not stay CL - Corrosive land DW - dragon walk terrain name walk swim walk(swim) swim(walk) walk+swim fly fly+swim DW plain (0%) 1 X 1 2 1 1 1 X plain 1 (10%) X 1 2 1 1 1* 1 X plain 2 (20%) X 1 2 1 1 1* 1 X plain 3 (25%) X 1 3 1 1 1* 1 X DF (10%) 1 X 1 2 1 1 1 1 DF 1 (10%) X 1 2 1 1 1* 1 2 DF 2 (20%) X 1 2 1 1 1* 1 2 DF 3 (25%) X 1 3 1 1 1* 1 3 MS (30%) 1 X 1 2 1 1 1 X MS 1 (30%) X 1 2 1 1 1* 1 X MS 2 (30%) X 1 2 1 1 1* 1 X MS 3 (30%) X 1 3 1 1 1* 1 X wild (0%) 2 X 2 3 2 1 1 X forest (20%) 2 X 2 3 2 1 1 X wetland (0%) X 1 2 1 1 1 1 X CL (0%) 2 X 2 3 2 1 1 X There are some obstacles like barriers, wells. All move type cannot stay on thems. Flyers cannot pass through them. There are some terrains like cliffs, plants, lanterns. All move type cannot stay on them but Flyers can pass through. There are some more tricks for you to discover. e.g iceland is counted as plain; iceberg is counted as wetland; flower is the same as forest. Notice that land effect in water is always larger than 10%. That why Lobster king is such hard dying in water. Fire serpent can go in water but their move are very slow in water (no more than 2 hexs). Move consumptions are always dividable by 2, 3 (unless you are climbing a wild terrain and you are swim type). That why with move 6 is completely different to with move 5. From 4 to 5, the improvement is not so significant. Don't be cheated by the numbers. RANGE TYPE EXPLANATION "Adjacent" attack can only strike enemies next to you within altitude differece 1. Facing factor will be taken account. Example: Enemy E-> facing right, A1-A6 are six different attack positions. A2 A3 A1 E-> A4 A6 A5 Facing factor of enemy E is FRONT to A4. Facing factor of enemy E is REAR to A1. Facing factor of enemy E is SIDE FRONT to A3, A5. Facing factor of enemy E is SIDE REAR to A2, A6. For magic which can target spellcaster himself, Facing factor is always REAR. See next section to understand how Facing factor affects damage / healing point. There are 4 different types of range attack (including magic and physical). "Range X" attacks can strike a unit up to X hexgons away. For facing factor, I could not draw the diagram here. Looks at attacker's facing direction and defender's facing direction. You will understand. Straight line type - Final attack range does depend on altitude of terrains - Targets terrain and Attacker terrain. Fixing one target, each 2 difference in altitude consume 1 cover range. If there is reminder, 1 cover range will still be deducted. The kind of attack could be blocked unconditionally if there are obstacles, barriers, units in gunshot. Facing factor of enemy at target will be taken account. (One exception is the spell, Death Zone) Obstacle means plants, lanterns, etc. It seems that terrains themselves are not counted as obstacles. Mechanism of terrain as obstacle is unknown to me. Projectile type - Have 3 kinds of projectile, large, medium, small. Final attack range depends on altitude of terrains - Targets terrain and Attacker terrain. Attacking to higher terrain, 2 difference in altitude reduce 1 cover range. If there is reminder, 1 cover range will still be deducted. Attacking to lower terrain, 2 difference in height give you 1 extra cover range. Reminder in height difference will not be accounted for. Size of projectile describes how easy the attack to be blocked. I think there are some ad-hoc rules on them after I performed the experiments. I don't feel like to share my raw data with you, but I would like to give you some ideas. Each obstacle will shadow some areas so your gunshot cannot reach. The size of shadowed area depends on the kind of obstacle, the projectile size and altitude difference. Different from straight line type attack, shadowed area is confined. Your missile is possible to pass through the shadowed area and attack your enemy far away from obstacle. In plain, medium projectile and small projectile are the same. But large projectile attack can strike across certain obstacles (e.g plants, units) Attacking from uphill to lower enemies, you could see the difference between medium and small projectiles. Shadowed area of obstacle could be smaller for medium projectile. There are some infinite high barriers such as wall. No projectile attacks can strike across them. Facing factor of enemy at target will be taken account in projectile attack. Occur type - Final attack range does not depend on altitude of terrains. No obstacles, units or wall can block this attack. Facing factor of enemy at target is always counted as REAR, even the enemy faces to attacker. large scale attack - The effect of the spell or attack may harm "surroundings." Surrounding X spell or attack hit every spot within X hexgones around the force center. The force center could be the spot of attacker such as Balance Doll's detonation. "Surrounding" attack likes straight line type range attack. Consume 1 cover range for each 2 altitude difference; if remainder exists, 1 cover range will be deducted. Unlike straight line range attack, units will not be counted as obstacle. The large scale effect can only be blocked by obstacles like wall, plants, etc. Facing factor is calculated by assuming that attack spot is at force center. This part is not precisely written. However, you could always check the actual attack range under addtional command menu. (Right click on your units) OA TIME CALCULATION The OA time for an action of character depends on 2 factors. 1. agility of character 2. action factor Firstly, convert agility to a time base by formula. time base (mins) = 90 * {1.5 to power [(2-agility) / 8]} example : agility is 10, time base is 60 mins. Don't round your time base. Next you have to calculate action factor. Each different actions have different grades. They refer to the additional time for the action to be taken. Time factor for action is either Grade A - 0 Grade B - 1 / 12 Grade C - 2 / 12 Grade D - 3 / 12 Grade E - 4 / 12 Grade F - 5 / 12 Grade G - 6 / 12 Don't round your time factor. Finally, OA time for following actions are WAIT = Round (time base * 0.5); MOVE = Round (time base * 0.75); STAY and ACTION = Round [time base * (0.75 + time factor)] MOVE and ACTION = Round [time base * (1 + time factor)] X.a is real number. Round (X.a) = X if a <= 0.5 Round (X.a) = X + 1 if a > 0.5 case study : Cactus soldier's attack is class E attack. He has agility 7. After he give a move attack, he should wait 94 mins before he can take next action !!! DAMAGE CALCULATION For attack or magic attack, there are several factors to affect the final damage. 1. facing factor (f.f) For FRONT, f.f = 0 For SIDE FRONT, f.f = 1 For SIDE REAR, f.f = 3 For REAR, f.f = 4 2. attribute factor (a.f) if attacker is superior to defender, a.f = 8 if attacker is inferior to defender, a.f = -9 if attacker and defender have same the attributes (Only natials have attributes), a.f = -4 if attacker is summoner, a.f = 6 otherwise a.f = 0 3. magic gain factor (m.f) Only magic attack has magic gain factor. For compactness of formula, let's assume m.f = 0 for physical attack. m.f can be negative -4 to positive 8 for magic. (See character's guide for detail) 4. land effect. A value from 0%, 10%, 20%, 25%, 30%. 5. attack (magic power) of attacker and defense (magic defense) of defender. Let's denote them as ATT and DEF. Physical attack uses the attributes "attack" and "defense"; Magical attack uses the attributes "magic power" and "magic defense". The damage mark (NOT HP) d.m is calculated by d.m = (ATT - DEF) + f.f + a.f + m.f Convert it to HP (in floating point) by table. Yes, adhoc rule again! table (a) HP d.m 0.5 <= -10 0.6 -9 0.7 -8 0.8 -7 0.9 -6 1 -5 1.25 -4 1.5 -3 1.75 -2 2 -1 2.3 0 2.6 1 3 2 3.5 3 4 4 4.5 5 5 6 5.5 7 6 8 6.5 9 7 10 7.4 11 7.8 12 8.2 13 8.5 14 8.8 15 9 16 9.2 17 9.4 18 9.6 19 9.8 20 10 21 10.2 22 10.4 23 10.6 24 10.8 25 11 26 11.2 27 11.4 28 11.6 29 11.8 30 12 31 12.1 32 12.2 33 12.3 34 12.4 35 12.5 36 12.6 37 12.7 38 12.8 39 12.9 40 13 41 13.1 42 13.2 43 13.3 44 13.4 45 13.5 46 13.6 >=47 This HP is still not the final result, you have to account for land effect. Final HP = Round(HP * 1 - (land effect)), where Round is defined in previous section. Notice that Round (x.5) = x not x + 1 Of course, if HP >= 10, there is a star hit. Comments : look at the table, d.m maps to HP nonlinearly. You see it is much difficult to give star hit as well as giving 0 hit. In general, damages could be 1 to 9. On magic stone, (30% land effect), it is impossible to give a damage of 10. At last, I define life stealing magic to be attack magic. The amount of HP damages on enemy is equal to the amount of HP healed on spellcaster. If the enemy has 1 HP left, spellcaster can at most recover 1 HP. (Similarly for life stealing physical attack) ATTACK SUPPORT MAGIC The target of attack support magic is enemy. They are magic harmful to enemies but cannot directly take their life. I will emphasize how to calculate the effective time here. The effective time depends on 5 factors. 1. attribute factor (a.f) if spellcaster is superior to spell sufferer, a.f = 8 if spellcaster is inferior to spell sufferer, a.f = -9 if spellcaster and sufferer have same the attributes (Only natials have attributes), a.f = -4 if spellcaster is summoner, a.f = 6 otherwise a.f = 0 2. magic power of spellcaster (ATT) 2 special cases are normal attacks of Deruna and the spiritualist with glasses. They use "attack" instead of "magic power". 3. magic defense of spell sufferer (DEF) 2 special cases are normal attacks of Deruna and the spiritualist with glasses. We use "defense" instead of "magic defense" in calculation. 4. magic factor (m.f) Petrifying magic, charm magic : m.f = 1 Downgrade magic : m.f = 2 Magic banning : m.f = 3 5. magic gain (m.g) Different magic have different magic gain. Magic gain is 0 if unspecified. If I remember correctly, only Golden Hammer and Golden Madness have m.g equal to 4. Denote magic mark = a.f + m.g + ATT - DEF + 10 and convert magic mark to time base according to table (b) table (b) magic mark time base <= -9 0 -8 1 -7 2 -6 3 -5 4 -4 5 -3 6 -2 7 -1 8 0 9 1 10 2 11 3 13 4 16 5 20 6 25 7 30 8 35 9 40 10 50 11 60 12 70 13 80 14 90 15 100 16 120 17 140 18 160 19 180 20 200 21 220 22 240 23 260 24 280 25 300 26 320 27 340 28 360 29 380 30 400 31 420 32 440 33 460 34 480 35 500 36 520 37 540 38 560 39 580 40 600 41 620 42 640 43 660 44 680 45 700 46 720 47 740 48 760 49 780 50 800 At last, effective time = time base X time factor. If effective time exceed 999 mins, it will be truncated to 999 mins. HEALING MAGIC There are several healing magics which healing point does depend on spellcaster's magic power. However, healing point does not depends on facing factor, land effect of targets. There are 2 healing magic for characters. They all have magic gain 4. The other 3 magic is for natials. They all have magic gain 0. Healing mark = magic power of spellcaster + magic gain - 9. And then convert Healing mark to HP by table (a). e.g Flying ship's magic power is 18, magic gain of it magic is 0, healing mark is 9, HP is 6.5. Final healing point = Round(HP) So Flying ship heals 6. SUPPORT MAGIC As long as effective time is concerned, there are 2 kinds of support magic. One of them is upgrade magic. The other is weather control magic. Different upgrade magic have different magic gain. However, they do depend on magic power of spellcaster only. The same holds for weather control magic (magic gain assumed to be 0). magic mark = magic power of spellcaster + magic gain For weather control magic, see the following convertion table. table(c) magic mark effective time in mins 0 10 1 20 2 30 3 40 4 50 5 60 6 70 7 80 8 90 9 100 10 110 11 120 12 140 13 160 14 180 15 200 16 220 17 240 18 260 19 280 20 300 21 320 22 340 23 360 24 380 25 400 26 420 27 440 28 460 29 480 30 500 For upgrade magic, time factor is 2. convert m.m to be time base by table (b) effective time = time base * 2. ABOUT EFFECTIVE TIME Magic effect cannot be accumulated. For example, if you cast a upgrade magic on a unit who is already upgraded. Lets say His magic can last 102 mins left. Your magic effective time is 80 mins. Then there will be no effect on him. May be you your magic effective time is 160 mins. Then His upgrade effect can lasts 160 mins NOT 102 + 160 mins. The similar holds for other support magic. Some magic can neutralize the other magic. e.g downgrade 120 mins can neutralize a upgraded 20 mins enemy. Then, the enemy do not have any magic effects on it. LEVEL UP GUIDE Only natials gain experience in battle. They earn a level if they accumulated 100 EXP. Maximum level is 5. Initial level is 1. Let's me introduce the following constants damage constant = 3 kill bonus = 24 heal constant = 5.4 poison constant = 15 detox constant = 15 magic ban constant = 0.1 repel magic ban constant = 0.1 charm constant = 0.3 petrify constant = 0.3 de-petrify constant = 0.3 upgrade constant = 0.15 downgrade constant = 0.15 magic stone constant = 20 I would like to define the following terms giver and taker. For physical attack, giver is attacker; taker is defender. For magic attack, giver is spellcaster; takers would be the targets. For magic stone grabbing, giver and taker are the same person. For curing or healing, giver is spellcaster; takers would be friendly unit. If taker is summoner, I define his cost to be 80. If giver/taker is natial, I define his cost to be his MP cost. I also define level correction factor. It is 1 for level 1; It is 0.8 for level 2; It is 0.6 for level 3; It is 0.4 for level 4; It is 0.2 for level 5. Suppose your natial gains 160 EXP in one action, your natial is at level 1. He gets 100 EXP to raise one level. He gets 60 * 0.8 EXP = 48 EXP at level 2. Beware that the EXP I written below are only the EXP without level adjustment. You have to go it by yourself. (a) EXP gain for grabbing magic stone. The magic stone must be either unoccupied or owned by other camp. After grabbing one magic stone. EXP gain = magic stone constant * taker cost / giver cost = 20. (b) Cure and heal magic EXP gain = sum of all takers {heal constant * HP recovered of taker * taker cost / giver cost} EXP gain = sum of all takers {poison constant * taker cost / giver cost} (c) Support magic with effective time Depends on which magic, use the suitable magic constant. e.g charm constant for charming magic EXP gain = sum of all takers {magic constant * real effective time * taker cost / giver cost} What is real effective time ? For example, you cast an upgraded magic on a downgraded unit. As a result, you neutralize the effect. If effect time of downgrade left is 43 mins. Real effective time is 43 mins. Another example, you cast an upgraded magic (120 mins) on a upgraded unit on whom magic can last 12 mins. Real effective time is 120 - 12 = 108 mins. (d) Attack magic or physical attack No life stealing, poisonous effect, kills. EXP gain = sum of all takers {damage constant * HP reduction of taker * taker cost / giver cost} For life stealing, EXTRA EXP gain = {heal constant * HP recovered of taker * taker cost / giver cost} = 3 * HP recovered of taker. For poisonous attack EXTRA EXP gain = {poison constant * taker cost / giver cost} = 15 For a kill, EXTRA EXP gain = sum of all takers {kill bouns * taker cost / giver cost} kill bonus for lotus fairy is not the same as the other, it does depend on damage taken by taker and taker's kind HP 1 HP 2 HP 3 Balance doll 72 48 24 Dharma prayer 72 24 ?? Cactus soldier 72 48 ?? Leopard cat teapot 72 72 48 Bottle crane 72 48 24 River night elf 48 24 ?? As a result, lotus fairy gain a lot of EXP if she can kill an enemy. Her kill bouns table is no completed yet. This part of FAQ is not organized well. You may find it to be a mess. Nevertheless, I hope the information listed here could be helpful for you. Good luck!