Lies My Rulebook Told Me

[Micah]

Lies My Rulebook Told Me, or The Unofficial Rulebook Errata Thread

This list is fairly well fact-checked, but if anyone can provide contradictory data please let me know and I will make corrections.

I have also not gone through the fort and PD section, or the spell list, and have no intention of doing so. If someone else wants to take this on please go ahead.


And now, without further ado, the list, with page numbers for the offending section of text:

Major issues:

Call god is a 50 priest-turn process, not 40. p52

If forces from different nations attack the same province on the same turn the order that the battles resolve in is deterministic based on nation number. It is NOT random as described in the rulebook. p66 (Updated- It is likely that the determination of nationID now follows the same progression as unitID: Starting at either the top or bottom of the list and proceeding from there, as opposed to a full randomization. This is an improvement.)

Blood hunt income is affected by the master site setting of the game. This is not reflected in the formula given for slave income. p69

Units retreating from a fort or break siege attempt flee as usual as opposed to dying. p69

Global enchantments take effect when cast, not as described in the turn order. p72

Critical hits hurt a heck of a lot more (and may be more frequent) than the formula given would indicate. p76

The stated attack penalty for multiple repel attempts in the same turn is not actually applied. p76

The formula for missiles landing against shielded units overstates the protection that shields provide. p77

The description of how morale checks works does not seem to be accurate. High morale units don't seem to be hit by unlucky rolls as often as they should be with the formula as stated. p80

Similarly, fear does not seem to function exactly as described, since units never seem to run away on the first turn they engage, which should be possible. p56

A mindless leader that is given retreat orders or is autorouted on turn 50 of a battle will dissolve, even though it should be able to command itself. p81

Path boosting spells are compared to gem expenditure, this is not accurate, as path boost spells in combat function like having the path innately, increasing max gem use and allowing gems to further boost the path. p89


Moderate issues:

Mercs don't mention that they vanish when they flee. p45

Immobile pretenders can only teleport, not cloud Trapeze or Gate, as the book says. p47

Chill and heat effects are variable, not a flat 5. p57

Research does not grant experience (beyond the base 1 that everyone gets). p58

No mention of needing a lab to equip items to commanders. p63

Move and patrol doesn't patrol for hidden units or unrest, it just defends outside the fort. p69

The attack current province command on a hidden unit will join any magical attack made on the province as opposed to moving during normal unit movement. p71

Animals have a siege penalty which is not stated. p81 (Update- This is incorrect, there does not seem to be an animal penalty, despite dev comments)

Extra paths due to boosters are not included as extra gems for a global, though they don't count as negative levels if the caster is under the minimum. (Not tested by me) p88

Effective dominion score for temple (and possibly other forms of) spread does not increase with temples built, it is set by starting dom. p93


Typos/Minor Issues/Clarifications:

The scale chart on p39 is just wrong. Look at p51 for more correct values.

The scale chart on 51 has incorrect values listed for random event frequency modifiers for the order and luck scales, and the resource values given for the production scale. (Inclusive of negative versions of each scale.) p51

SR from A9 bless is 75, not 70. p49

Magic resistance should be compared to defense value, not protection. p55

Glamour does not always come with stealth. p56

Diseased units only have a chance of gaining additional afflictions, it's not for sure. p58

The stealth formula and example don't use the same values. p67

Clams can't make pearls when unequipped, example is incorrect. p72

Morningstars and flails get bonuses against shields instead of ignoring them (slight uncertainty on this one). p75

The numbers given in the poison example are mathematically incorrect. p78

Prophetizing a high-level priest is not actually a good idea. p95

[Atreides]

You are a sick sick man Micah. That being said, this list is extremely useful. Thanks!

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm, some of these (Move and Patrol, repel penalty) I did not know. Very interesting.

I rather agree about prophetizing the high-level priest. Smite is better than Word of Power in the early game.

-Max

[Edi]

Death magic grants 30 undead leadership, not 20 as the manual says.

[Lingchih]

You just had to bring all this up, didn't you?

[Endoperez]

Micah said:
Global enchantments take effect when cast, not as described in the turn order. p72

Critical hits hurt a heck of a lot more (and may be more frequent) than the formula given would indicate. p76

The stated attack penalty for multiple repel attempts in the same turn is not actually applied. p76

The formula for missiles landing against shielded units overstates the protection that shields provide. p77

The description of how morale checks works does not seem to be accurate. High morale units don't seem to be hit by unlucky rolls as often as they should be with the formula as stated. p80

Similarly, fear does not seem to function exactly as described, since units never seem to run away on the first turn they engage, which should be possible. p56

I counted 34 issues. That's pretty good for a 300-page manual. Leaving away spell and summon lists (your issues were mostly about mechanics), it's a bit worse but still not as bad as some people like to claim.


Global Effects: What do you mean by "globals take effect when cast"? I thought the "global phase" was when Burden of Time ages units and Wrath of God smites units and similar effects take place, but I read your issue as in "global spells are cast on the 'cast ritual spells' phase", which is still a minor issue because it's unclear, but not major as you have listed it as.

Critical hits, missiles vs shields: These are indeed major issues, but I still don't know if they are actually bugged. People say that they seem to happen more often than they should, but people are biased. I'd like to know how shields actually work, because if it works as the manual claims it works parry 9 Black Steel shield is better than an Air Shield.

Repel penalty: in my experience this definitely happens. A Black Lord thug with well-boosted attack value and a whip (length 6) is overwhelmed by militia; the first ones are repelled but the latter ones will hit him just fine. It could be that the penalty is smaller than the manual states it to be, or it could be I was too hasty in drawing conclusions in my test. I'm interested in hearing why you think repel doesn't lower attack, though.


Morale (and fear): I haven't thought about this too much. Still, perhaps morale above 10 is actually counted as if it was ( [morale - 10]*2 +10), so morale 14 is calculated as morale 18 etc etc. Precision is handled the same way, and I think it'd fit the illogical logic of the game mechanics.

[Micah]

It's actually only about a 60-page section, since the tutorial and basic interface is the first 35 pages, and the end of the stuff I reviewed is on 96, so that's an average of one mistake every other page.

Perhaps the global is an interpretation issue, many players, myself included, were under the impression from the phrasing that globals cast that turn didn't start working until that phase. This most notably applies to Arcane Nexus, since the timing makes a difference in that it will collect gems the turn it is cast. Also things like when gift of health applies the bonus HP.

I guarantee that criticals do not function as written. Other people ran tests with shields and posted them on the forum a while back. I don't have a reference.

The repel data comes from when I saw swarm cast on an arch devil. Try it.

I'd be happy to take a look at some examples of test turns that would indicate that I made a mistake, but not so interested in debating impressions. I've checked the things I was unsure of, I expect anyone that wants to debate the issues to do the same. Some of these observations were from a few patches back, so something may have changed, but given no appearance in the patch notes I'm going to assume a no unless proven otherwise.

Oh, and an addition: Rituals aren't cast in a random order. I've heard rumors that sometimes it starts at the bottom of the unit list and goes up, but it's based on unit ID numbers, even if it's sometimes inverted. I somewhat suspect that it's always lowest goes first though.

[Zeldor]

Yeah, I was sure that Arcane Nexus does not make gems on the turn it is cast.

And ritual casting will be easy to check - just use commanders in the same province and name them by order they are there.

[Saxon]

Thank you for posting this. It helps explain a few odd things and will certainly prevent some future posts. I would suggest making this a sticky.

[Endoperez]

Here are some relevant threads:

Critical hits, math vs reality

Missile Vs Shield, math vs reality

Also an older thread:
Missile Vs Shield, Dom2 vs Dom3
Was the missile formula actually changed? If the parry value isn't doubled but just taken as-is, well, that'd explain many things.


I'll test Swarm vs Arch Devil once I get home. Does it matter what weapon I give him? I'll also try it with an Ice Devil with a burning pearl, to see if it's some bug with the attack bonus from Fire or something similar.