Air Sphere

+Summoning 2. Conjure Air Elemental

Body Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Haste- Gives every unit in the casters stack +1 movement for a turn.
+Sorcery 2. Regeneration- Increases the targets heal rate.
+Sorcery 3. Stoneskin- Makes the unit immune to the next 3 hits.

Summoning 1. (None)
Summoning 2. (None)

+Divine 1. (Runes, Overlords) Burning Blood- Allied living unit gains +40% strength, Blitz and +2 move and has a 50% chance of being killed at the end of the turn. Only effects living units. (Loki)
+Divine 2. (Runes, Overlords) Graft Flesh- Caster can kill 2 living units to make a Flesh Golem with all the promotions of both units. (Loki)

Chaos Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Dance of Blades- Units in the tile gain first strike
+Sorcery 2. Dispel Magic- Removes harmful effects from allied units and benificial effects from enemy units if it isn't resisted
+Sorcery 3. Rage- Target living unit becomes a Barbarian unit

+Summoning 1. Summon Chaos Marauder- 20% chance to become a barbarian unit instead of being unsummoned. (Corlindale)
+Summoning 2. Summon Pit Beast- Doesn't unsummon as long as it wins a battle every turn.

+Divine 1. (Overlords) Mutation- Randomly does some of the following to all living units in the casters tile:
[tab]Reduces strength by 1
[tab]Raises strength by 1
[tab]Raises strength by 2
[tab]Makes the Unit enraged
[tab]Makes the Unit crazed
[tab]Makes the Unit diseased
[tab]Makes the Unit vulnerable to fire
[tab]Makes the Unit resistent to magic
[tab]Makes the Unit able to regenerate
[tab]Makes the Unit withered
+Divine 2. (Overlords) Reversal of Fortune- Gives a bonus to target unit relative to strength difference between it and higher strength opponents

Death Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Raise Skeleton- Summons a Skeleton. A civ can only have 1 summoned skeletons per caster with this ability.
+Sorcery 2. Contagion- Does damage and disease to 50% of the units in the effected tile.
+Sorcery 3. Lichdom- Converts the caster into a Lich. A civ can only have 3 liches at once.

+Summoning 1. (Veil) Summon Nightmare- Has the Fear promotion. (Loki)
+Summoning 2. (Veil) Summon Wraith- Summons a Wraith, enervates opponents.

Divine 1. (none)
Divine 2. (none)

Dimensional Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Escape- Returns the unit to the capital

Earth Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Wall of Stone- Grants the city a temporary Wall building/Fortification improvement
+Sorcery 2. Rust- Melee units get a negative promotion that lasts until they return to a barracks, metal golems suffer damage. (Corlindale)
+Sorcery 3. Tremor- Moves all enemy units within 1 tile of the caster a tile away (resistable).

+Summoning 1. Summon Kikijub
+Summoning 2. Conjure Earth Elemental- Summons an Earth Elemental for 1 turn

+Divine 1. (Runes) Transmutation- Turns an owned Copper resource into a Gold resource or vise versa.
+Divine 2. (Runes) Earthquake- Destroys buildings and improvements

Enchantment Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Enchanted Blade- Grants the Enchanted Blade promotion to Melee units in the tile. It also removes the Rusted effect from any unit in the tile.
+Sorcery 2. Flaming Arrows- Grants the Flaming Arrows promotion to Archer units in the tile.
+Sorcery 3. Spellstaff- Grants the Spellstaff promotion to the caster, breaking a spellstaff renews the casters casting ability.

Summoning 1. (None)
Summoning 2. (None)

+Divine 1. (Runes) Spiritual Hammer- Grants the Spirtual Hammer promotion to disciple units in the tile.
+Divine 2. (Runes) Shield of Faith- Grants the Shield of Faith promotion to all units.

Entropy Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Wither- Negative healing promotion. (Corlindale) (resistable)
+Sorcery 2. Defile- Curses the tile, giving negative production and health effects.
+Sorcery 3. Enervation- Halves living victims experience points. (resistable)

+Summoning 1. (Veil) Summon Imp- Summons an Imp for 1 turn
+Summoning 2. (Veil) Summon Balrog- Summons a Balrog for 1 turn

+Divine 1. (Veil) Unholy Taint- Weakens the caster and increases the rate he gains xp.
+Divine 2. (Veil) Banish- Unit is transported to Hell (high chance to resist) (AI blocked)

Fire Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Scorch- Turns a plains tile into a desert
+Sorcery 2. Fireball- Summons a Fireball
+Sorcery 3. Meteor Swarm- Summon 3 Meteors

+Summoning 1. (Veil) Sand Lion- Summons a Sand Lion for 1 turn, can only be cast on a desert tile
+Summoning 2. (Veil) Conjure Fire Elemental- Summons a Fire Elemental for 1 turn

+Divine 1. (Order, Veil) Ring of Flames- Damages all units within 1 tile (direct damage does 115% damage to all units within 1 tile except the casters tile, -5% per level and per strength point)
+Divine 2. (Order, Veil) Pillar of Fire- Does damage to all units in a stack. Does bonus damage vs demons if cast by an order priest and bonus damage vs disciples if cast by an Ashen Veil priest.

Law Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Loyalty- grants the Loyalty promotion to all units in the same tile, units with Loyalty will die before they are converted to other civs.
+Sorcery 2. Valor- temporary promotion that grants the unit bonus experience when it successfully wins in combat
+Sorcery 3. Unyielding Order- immediatly stops all unrest in a city and boosts production

+Summoning 1. Summon Law Bringer- Can only attack evil civs units. (Loki)
+Summoning 2. Summon Host of the Einherjar- Doesnt unsummon as long as it wins a battle every turn.

+Divine 1. (Order) Restore City- Creates a city out of City Ruins.
+Divine 2. (Order) Righteous Cause- Can only be cast while in the radius of an enemy city. For each point of unhappiness a crusader is summoned. Caster dies. (Loki)

Life Sphere

+Sorcery 1. (Leaves) Sanctify- Removes fallout.
+Sorcery 2. (Leaves) Destroy Undead- Does damage to all of the ndead units in the effected tile.
+Sorcery 3. (Leaves) Ressurection- Ressurects the civilizations hero. Can only be cast on a life mana node and it consumes that node.

+Summoning 1. Summon Griffon- Summons a Griffon for one turn.
+Summoning 2. Summon Lifespark- Creates a unit that can be sacrificed to heal units in the same tile, and will heal defending units in its stack during combat.

+Divine 1. (Runes, Leaves, Order) Cure Disease- Removes the Diseased, Plagued and Withered promotion from all units in the same tile
+Divine 2. (Runes, Leaves, Order) Heal- Heals all units in the casters tile.

Mind Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Charm Person- Unit cannot attack caster or his allies. Spell has a 10% chance of wearing off every turn. (resistable)
+Sorcery 2. Inspiration- When cast in a city it temporarily boosts the research rate of that city.
+Sorcery 3. Domination- Allows control of target unit. If resisted the targeted units controler gains control of the caster.

Summoning 1. (None)
Summoning 2. (None)

+Divine 1. (Overlords) Floating Eye- conjures a magical eye that lets the caster explore the surrounding area
+Divine 2. (Overlords) Hideous Thoughts- Unit loses half its hit points and becomes enraged. Has a small chance to wear off every turn. (Loki)

Nature Sphere

+Sorcery 1. (Leaves) Treetop Defence- Grants units +2 first strikes while it is in a forest
+Sorcery 2. (Leaves) Summon Tiger- Summons a tiger (tiger can be caged at a carnival). A civ can only have 1 summoned tiger per caster with this ability at once.
+Sorcery 3. (Leaves) Vitalize the Land- Snow turns into Tundra, Tundra turns into Plains, Plains turns into Grass, Grass turns into Forest

+Summoning 1. Summon Guardian Vines- Summons an immobile defender.
+Summoning 2. Summon Treant- Can only be cast in a forest.

+Divine 1. (Leaves) Bloom- Creates a "starter" Forest
+Divine 2. (Leaves) Entangle- Chance to root every unit in the tile for 1 turn, can be resited.

Spirit Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Courage- Gives all units in the tile the Courage promotion, units with Courage improve the healing of units in the same tile and are immune to fear.
+Sorcery 2. Hope- When cast in a city it temporarily boosts culture output and happiness of that city. (Loki)
+Sorcery 3. Trust- Gives you a relationship boost with other civs, doesn’t stack. (Loki)

Summoning 1. (None)
Summoning 2. (None)

+Divine 1. (Order) Spirit Guide- When the unit dies it passes 25% of its XP and the Spirit Guide ability to a random allied unit in its tile.
+Divine 2. (Order) Bless- Applies the Bless promotion on all non-Demonic and non-Undead units in the same tile until their next combat

Water Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Spring- Turns desert tiles into plains.
+Sorcery 2. Walk on Water- Gives the caster the water walking promotion.
+Sorcery 3. Tsunami- Can only be cast against tiles bordering the ocean, damages units and destroys buildings and improvements. Has a small chance to convert that tile to a coast tile.

+Summoning 1. Summon Djinn- Djinns often start with the ability to cast spells.
+Summoning 2. Conjure Water Elemental- Summons a Water Elemental for 1 turn

Divine 1. (Overlords)
+Divine 2. (Overlords) Summon Kraken- A civ can have 1 Kraken for every unit that can cast this spell.

Other Abilities
[tab]Breathe Fire
[tab]Commander Join
[tab]Commander Split
[tab]Consume Soul
[tab]Convert City
[tab]Drown
[tab]Feast
[tab]Feed
[tab]Found Temple
[tab]Gift Vampirism
[tab]Inquisition- Removes all non-state religions from the city.
[tab]Peace- Allows Corlindale to declare peace between all civs and his owning civ.
[tab]Pirate Cove- Allows Lanun workers to create pirate coves.
[tab]Recruit- Allows Great Commanders and Donal Lugh to recruit new units in cities.
[tab]Repair- Allows dwarven enchanters to heal siege, naval and golem units.
[tab]Roar- Dragon ability that converts all Cult of the Dragon units around them.
[tab]Sacrifice- Allows a unit in a city with a Demons Altar to be sacrificed for research.
[tab]Spellstaff- Allows a unit to sacrifice his spellstaff to regain the ability to cast.
[tab]Train Dance of Blades- Allows Govannon to teach units to cast the Dance of Blades spell.
[tab]Train Escape- Allows Govannon to teach units to cast the Escape spell.
[tab]Train Haste- Allows Govannon to teach units to cast the Haste spell.
[tab]Train Maceman- Allows a Battlemaster to upgrade Axemen to Macemen away from cities.
[tab]Train Raise Skeleton- Allows Govannon to teach units to cast the Raise Skeleton spell.
[tab]Train Worg Rider- Allows a goblin on a wolf to upgrade to a Worg Rider for free.

Spheres coming in later phases:

Air Sphere

Sorcery 1. Fair Winds- Boosts Naval units movement and withdrawal chance
Sorcery 2. Whirlwind- Pushes enemy units away from the caster if they aren't in a city and don't resist
Sorcery 3. Maelstrom- Lightning damages all enemy units within 2 tiles of the caster

Summoning 1. Summon Lightning Elemental- Summons a Lightning Elemental for 1 turn
Summoning 2. Conjure Air Elemental- Summons an Air Elemental for 1 turn

Divine 1. Cloud Walk- Target units becomes a flying type unit until end of turn. Gains 50% withdrawal. (Loki)
Divine 2. Thunder Storm- For the next five turns damage is randomly dealt to each unit in all squares adjacent to the caster. Forest Fires are extinguished. Caster is rooted. (Loki)

Creation Sphere

+Sorcery 1. (Leaves) Sanctify- Removes fallout
+Sorcery 2. (Leaves) Bloom- Creates a "starter" Forest
+Sorcery 3. (Leaves) Vitalize the Land- Snow turns into Tundra, Tundra turns into Plains, Plains turns into Grass, Grass turns into Forest

Summoning 1. Conjure Creation Elemental- Minor elemental appears, sanctify's the tile and renews the units in the tile
Summoning 2. Animate- Summons an elemental based on the resource in the tile (Loki)

+Divine 1. (Leaves) Lifecycle- Death of the unit sanctify's and upgrades the tile (Loki)
Divine 2. (Leaves) Renewal- Restores the units movement points? (Loki)

Dimensional Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Escape- Returns the unit to the capital (checked in)
Sorcery 2. Shadow Walk- Teleports the unit to any city that has an Obsidion Gate
Sorcery 3. Teleport- Teleports the unit to any revealed tile

Summoning 1. (None)
Summoning 2. (None)

Divine 1. (Not used in Light) Remove Obstacle- gets rid of defense granting buildings for a turn. (Loki)
Divine 2. (Not used in Light) Vanish- Causes a unit to dissappear for a turn, can be used on allied or enemy units, resistable when used on enemy units.

Force Sphere

Sorcery 1. Levitate- Allows the caster a brief glimpse of everything in a 3 tile radius.
Sorcery 2. Telekinetic Punch- Strength 6 Attack
Sorcery 3. Forcewave-

Summoning 1.
Summoning 2.

Divine 1. (Not used in "Light")
Divine 2. (Not used in "Light")

Metamagic Sphere

Sorcery 1. Dispel Magic- Removes any existing spells (good or bad) in the targeted tile
Sorcery 2. Magic Resistance- Gives the unit the Magic resistance promotion for a few turns.
Sorcery 3. Anti-Magic Shell- Removes all spells within a 1 tiles radius of the caster and keeps any new spells from being cast for the next turn in that area.

Summoning 1.
Summoning 2.

Divine 1. (Not used in "Light")
Divine 2. (Not used in "Light")

Shadow Sphere

Sorcery 1. Invisibility- Hides the effected unit
Sorcery 2. Illusion- Creates a fake unit that lasts a few turns
Sorcery 3. Hallucinary Terrain- Hides effected city

Summoning 1.
Summoning 2.

Divine 1.
Divine 2.

Sun Sphere

Sorcery 1. Dowsing- Reveals all hidden bonus wuith 2 tiles. (bebematos)
Sorcery 2. True Seeing- Reveals all invisible units in a 2 tile radius.
Sorcery 3.

Summoning 1. Mark of the Sun- permanent unless an enemy unit moves onto the tile, reveals everything with 2 tiles, weakens undead and vampires, cant be built within 5 tiles of another mark of the sun. (bebematos)
Summoning 2.

Divine 1.
Divine 2.

Ideas under consideration:

1. A water spell that lets you create a river? (Psychic_Llamas)

okay, Lets start at the beginning.
Air Sphere

Sorcery 2. Tornado - Deals huge damage to a stack of units, and gets rid of improvements.

Divine 1. Heart of Air - Target units becomes a flying type unit until end of turn. Gains 50% withdrawal.
Divine 2. Divine Wind - Each unit in an adjacent square is reduced to half health.
Divine 3. Thunder of God - Each time a non-spell, non-barb unit dies this turn, the weakest unit in its stack is destroyed. Caster dies.

More tomorrow.

Here's a few suggestions, though I have no idea whether they are possible.

Chaos Sphere

Summoning 2.
Summoning 3. Summons Beast of Chaos, which each turn has a 20% chance of being summoned under control of a random other civ(perhaps only a civ you're at war with, and if you aren't at war, a 40% chance for turning barbarian), and a 20% chance of being summoned as a barbarian unit.

Divine 1. Heedless prayer(a random divine 1 spell is cast)
Divine 2.
Divine 3. Chaotic Intervention(40% chance of killing the target, 60% chance of killing the caster)

Creation Sphere


Sorcery 2. Rising force - turns a grassland, plains or tundra tile into a hill tile.

Divine 3. Rebirth - unit gets a temporary and weakened Immortal promotion, with a 20-40% chance of being reborn upon death.

Death Sphere

Summoning 2. Spirit of the departed - summons a "ghost" of the last of your units to be killed, with only 50% of its strength and none of its promotions but perhaps extra movement.(Probably impossible to code, though.)


Dimensional Sphere

Divine 1. Divine transportation - Teleports the unit to a random city with your state religion present.

Earth Sphere

Sorcery 2. Flesh to stone - Immobilizes a unit, but also grants it a +50% defense strength. Golems are immune to it.

Divine 2. Stone to flesh - reverses a flesh to stone spell, or deals damage to stone golems.

Entropy Sphere

Sorcery 1. Wither - gives target unit a small health degeneration, which in effect won't kill the unit, but will increase the amount of time it takes to heal.

Fire Sphere


Divine 2. Flow of Fire - turns a water tile into a lava tile, which severely damages any naval units traversing it. (assuming lava will eventually be implemented for Hell)


Force Sphere


Summoning 2. Summon Forcefield - a 0 move unit which has a chance to push any units surrounding it back one tile.

Ice Sphere



Summoning 2. Summon Ice Throll.

Law Sphere

Summoning 3. Angel of Justice

Life Sphere


Sorcery 2. Remove Curse

Metamagic Sphere



Summoning 2. Summon Will-o-the-wisp, which is a fairly weak unit that is completely immune to magic.
Summoning 3. Summon Arcane Guardian, which is an anti-caster unit that doesn't deal damage, but has a chance to temporarily remove spell promotions from casters.

Mind Sphere

Divine 1. Psychic surgery - removes any mental effects.
Divine 2. Revert Mind - Regain control of a converted unit, but unit loses all promotions it has gained since converting.

Nature Sphere

Sorcery 1. Rage of the Woodlands - damages a unit standing in a forest tile.


Water Sphere



Divine 1.
Divine 2. Flame of Water - Turns a lava tile into a water tile temporarily.
Divine 3.

Chaos
Summoning I: Avatar of Fear
--A medium strength unit that has a 25% chance to terrify all units in stack's it attacks. Only can terrify units with lower strength. Avatar type.
Summoning II: Hell Spawn
--High strength demon, immune to hell effects. Units it kills outside of hell are sent down to hell at half strength instead of dying. When Hell Spawn dies a Hell Spawn barbarian spawns in hell. However, the barb Hell Spawn can be spawned in merging planes areas, where Hell terrain is mixed with normal. Hell Spawn don't die at end of turn, instead they stay around until they kill a unit or die. While Hell Spawn is summoned, caster is rooted and can't cast. Spells and barbs don't cause Hell Spawn to die, and aren't sent to Hell when they die.
Divine I: Terrified Rage
--Target unit becomes crazed, and its ai is changed to always attack. When it fights a battle each unit in the attacking or defending stack has a 25% of being crazed.
Divine II: Chaos Horde
--Each unit of an adjacent stack has a 25% chance of becoming yours. In subsequent turns it has a chance to go back to its owner's control. The chance starts at 0%, but gets raised 5% each turn.
Divine III: Divine Wrath
--Target unit gets +100% strength, blitz, crazed, mobility I. Caster is rooted. After 5 turns both caster and target are destroyed. Can only target disciple type units. If caster dies before 5 turns have passed, the target is destroyed.

Spirit Sphere

Sorcery 1. Spirit Mastery- For the next 5 turns a unit is turned into a spirit. At the end it is returned to its old state.
Sorcery 2. Hope- When cast in a city it temporarily boosts culture output and happiness of that city. Also decreases war weariness
Sorcery 3. Trust- Gives you a relationship boost with other civs, doesn’t stack.

Summoning 2. Summon Spirit- A low strength flying unit. Doesn't die at end of turn.
Summoning 3. Spirits of the Dead- Summon a spirit for each unit killed in this space since a Spirits of the Dead was last cast.

Divine 1. Spirit Guide- When the unit is killed it passes 25% of its XP to a random allied unit in its tile.
+Divine 2. Bless- Applies the Bless promotion on all non-Demonic units in the same tile until their next combat
Divine 3. Channel the Spirits- Sacrifice a spirit, a spellcaster in the square gains the ability to cast again.

For one of the summoned units we could create a live pool (maybe even for demons) the unit starts with 2 points in the pool and one point is used up every turn. When the unit kills a point is added to the pool. Of course summoning this beast may have a prize.

The cost for spells might be:
Action - the caster cannot attack this turn (as with fireball)
Movement - the casting costs 1 or more movement points in addition to the upper
Minor Scrifice - the XP of the caster are reduced by X
Mayor Sacrife - e.g. some population
Live - the caster dies

The caster dying sounds like a great cost for a spell.

Caster dies is a result of many of the spellproposals above so i took it into my list even as i do not like it either

Another ones might be:
The improvement on a magic node is destroyed
A magic node resource is destroyed

Only difficulty in that is getting the AI to be good at using it. It then has to balance many factors to decide if it is worth the sacrifice.

Spells:

Air Sphere

Sorcery 1. Wind Wall- Makes ranged attacks 50% unlikely to hit the caster or units in the casters tile
Sorcery 2. Chain Lightning- Summons a strength 12 lightning bolt that has the Blitz promotion
Sorcery 3. Tornado- Does a small amount of damage to a stack of units and randomly disperses them. No dispersal effect in cities.

Summoning 2. Conjure Air Elemental- Summons an Air Elemental for 1 turn
Summoning 3. Summon Thunderhawk

Divine 1. Cloud Walk- Target units becomes a flying type unit until end of turn. Gains 50% withdrawal. (loki)
Divine 2. Thunder Storm- For the next five turns damage is randomly dealt to each unit in all squares adjacent to the caster. Caster is rooted.
Divine 3. Suffocate- Target unit has a chance to be killed based on this formual. Percentage Chance of death = 5 * ( 20 - (unit strength + unit level)). Doesn't work if target is in a city.

Body Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Haste- Gives every unit in the casters stack +1 movement for a turn
Sorcery 2. Regeneration- Speeds the target units healing
Sorcery 3. Stoneskin- Makes the unit immune to the next 50 points of dmg

Summoning 2. (None)
Summoning 3. (None)

Divine 1. Flesh Shield- Only castable in a city. City gains a defense bonus of 30 * population size for one turn.
Divine 2. Supersize- Target unit gets +100% strength, blitz. Caster is rooted. After five turns both caster and target die. If caster dies before 5 turns are up then all eeffects of target end immediatly.
Divine 3. Mix and Match- Combine two units that are the same type into one full strength unit that has al of the promotions both of them had, but is at level one. Also, a spirit is summoned. Caster dies.

Creation Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Bloom- Creates a Forest
Sorcery 2. Ultimate Sacrifice- Reduces merging planes and global warming. Caster is reduced to level one adept and loses all promotions.
+Sorcery 3. Vitalize the Land- Snow turns into Tundra, Tundra turns into Plains, Plains turns into Grass, Grass turns into Forest

Summoning 2. Conjure Creation Elemental- Minor elemental appears, upgrades the terrain and renewals the units in the tile
Summoning 3. Animate- Summons an elemental based on the resource in the tile (Loki)

Divine 1. Lifecycle- Death of the unit upgrades the tile (Loki)
Divine 2. Renewal- Restores the units movement points (Loki)
Divine 3. Energies of Creation- Only castable in a city. For the next five turns, for each non-barb, non-spell unit that dies in combat within the cities radius, 50% of its shield cost is added to the cities production.
Divine 4. Remake- Target land square is totally changed.
First, if the square has a resource, another random land resource is selected.
Then a square that the resource could be found on is randomly selected.
If there was no resource, then a random sqaure is selected.
All improvements on it are destroyed.
This never selects hell terrain, but it can select hell resources.

Death Sphere

Sorcery 1. Raise Skeleton- Summons a Skeleton
Sorcery 2. Contagion- Does damage and disease 50% of the units in the effected tile
Sorcery 3. Death Rattle- Does damage to all surrounding units when the unit is killed

Summoning 2. Summon Wraith- Summons a Wraith
Summoning 3. Summon Angel of Death- SUmmons an Angel of Death. High strength flying unit angel type with 1 first strike for each unit in the stack it is atacking, and collateral damage.

Divine 1. Second Life- When target non-spell, non-barb unit dies it is reborn in hell with its type changed to undead. If this is cast in hell, then the unit is instead reborn in your capital with its type changed to undead.
Divine 2. Necromancy- When target non-spell, non-barb unit dies it is ressurected on the same spot with its type changed to undead, at half health, at level one, and without any promotions.
Divine 3. State of Undead- Can only be cast in a city. For the next five turns, if a non-spell, non-barb unit dies in the city's radius, it is ressurected with its type changed to undead, at half health, at level one, and without any promotions. Caster is rooted. Undead units are instead ressurected at full health and without disease. Units can only be ressurrected once per turn.

Dimensional Sphere

+Sorcery 1. Escape- Returns the unit to the capital
Sorcery 2. Shadow Walk- Teleports the unit to any city that has an Obsidion Gate
Sorcery 3. Teleport- Teleports the unit to any revealed tile

Summoning 2. (None)
Summoning 3. (None)

Divine 1. Merge the Planes- Creates a five turn transport space from the caster's space to a random space in hell. If cast in hell does the reverse.
Divine 2. Swap- Switch the positions of the units in the caster's stack, and a target stack of units.
Divine 3. Free Passage- Creates a permanent portal that creates a new unit of a totally random type every so often. However, 25% of the units summoned are barbarian.

Earth Sphere

Sorcery 1. Wall of Stone- Grants the city a temporary Wall building/Fortification improvement
Sorcery 2. Boulder- Cast only be cast while on a hill, city, or peak. Deals a huge amount of damage to all units in an adjacent flat square.
Sorcery 3. Earthquake- Destroys buildings and improvements

+Summoning 2. Conjure Earth Elemental- Summons an Earth Elemental for 1 turn
Summoning 3. Summon Dao

Divine 1. Mudslide- Deals damage and destroys improvements in a straight line starting at the caster and ending in the first flat square in the line. Forest and water spaces also stop the mudslide.
Divine 2.
Divine 3.

Entropy Sphere

Sorcery 1. Wither- Negative healing promotion. (Corlindale)
Sorcery 2. Defile- Curses the tile, giving negative production and health effects.
Sorcery 3. Enervation- Decreases the targets level by 1, reduces experience, removes 1 promotion

Summoning 2. Summon Imp
Summoning 3. Summon Balrog- Summons a Balrog for 1 turn

Divine 1. Entropy's Disciples- Sacrifice a mage, increase the amount of merging planes, and global warming.
Divine 2. Quicken Entropy- When target unit dies, global warming and merging planes increases.
Divine 3. Banish- Unit is transported to Hell (chance to resist)

Fire Sphere

Sorcery 1. Ring of Flames
+Sorcery 2. Fireball- Summons a Fireball
+Sorcery 3. Meteor Swarm- Summon 3 Strength 7 Meteors

+Summoning 2. Conjure Fire Elemental- Summons a Fire Elemental for 1 turn
Summoning 3. Summon Fire Giant- Summons a high powered giant type, whose attacks have fire bonuses. Also causes collateral damage.

Divine 1. Resist Fire
Divine 2. Hellfire- Target unit takes huge damage, a wildfire is set in its space, and merging planes is increased.
Divine 3. Holy Fire- Each demon or undead unit in spaces sdjacent to the caster takes an amount of damage based on the number of disciples in the caster's space.

Wow loki, impressive. ;)

Wow loki, impressive. ;)

Hes been doing that since the first version of FfH was released, only it was typically in emails and PMs to me. Loki has more ideas in the mod than anyone but me (and sometimes I wonder if he isnt threatening that) but the even more scary part is that for every idea of his I use there are probably 15-20 decent ideas that aren't accepted. He is a firehose of ideas, no thats to small, a tsunami of ideas.

Thanks for those compliments. Here's some water spells.

Water Sphere

Sorcery 2. Whirlpool- Creates a permanent trap on a water space that is invisible to all except the casting player, and automatically kills the first unit to enter the space. Once it kills that first unit it is destroyed.
NOTE: it might be a cooler effect to have the whirlpool drag ships down to hell.

Divine 1. Hurricane- A spell that deals a lot of damage to flying and normal naval units, but not sea monsters. Only useable on water.
Divine 2. Water Bridge- Targets another mage directly across water (no land in the way). A water bridge is created that allows land units to cross. If either mage moves or dies the bridge is destroyed, and units on it are killed. Units on the bridge may not cast fire spells, and may be attacked by naval units.
Divine 3. Flood- Targets a river. Each land space adjacent to the river becomes a coastal space for five turns. Units in those spaces are killed (including the caster), but cities are unaffected. After five turns the terrain goes back to normal, but any improvments are not rebuilt.
Divine 4. Holy Waters- Castable only in a city. The water spaces in the radius of the city become "holy". Naval units carrying disciples get double movement on them, and naval units carrying undead units (or undead naval units) are slowed down and have a negative heal rate. The water spaces also generate +1 culture points each. Caster is killed, but some great person poitns are added to the city.

A magic node resource is destroyed

That has lots of beatiful possibilities, but I think it would work better as a quest effect.

By the way, it would be a nice mechanic if the units that caused normal units to run away in terror, instead increased war weariness in cities they attacked.

Also, I think that hope should decrease war weariness.

Divine 3. Energies of Creation- Only castable in a city. For the next five turns, for each non-barb, non-spell unit that dies in combat within the cities radius, 50% of its shield cost is added to the cities production.

I turned this into a wonder and dropped it over in the wonder thread.

About the Death Divine spells. The god of Death doesn't grant spells, he doesn't even pay attention to those that worship him as he is more focused on the world of the dead then that of the living.

The Sidar started as worshippers of the god of Death, and they still revere him, but worship is to strong a word. The Sidar have learned to extend their lifespan by consuming their soul. Over the centuries they lose all of the emotional aspects of being alive and become Shades/the Faded/the Grey. They are opposed to undead, which they see an an abberation (the God of Death is a god of natural Death and on the few occasions he has taken a role in the world it is usually to strike out against the undead), but are equally accused of being undead by the Mercurians.

So the 3 death divine slots are reserved for special spells only accessible to the Sidar, though I don't know what they will be yet. Think of stuff that matches the above concept more than the typical fantasy death stuff.

I turned this into a wonder and dropped it over in the wonder thread.

Is it Pact of the Nilhorn?

I'm glad you liked the idea.

About the Death Divine spells. The god of Death doesn't grant spells, he doesn't even pay attention to those that worship him as he is more focused on the world of the dead then that of the living.

The Sidar started as worshippers of the god of Death, and they still revere him, but worship is to strong a word. The Sidar have learned to extend their lifespan by consuming their soul. Over the centuries they lose all of the emotional aspects of being alive and become Shades/the Faded/the Grey. They are opposed to undead, which they see an an abberation (the God of Death is a god of natural Death and on the few occasions he has taken a role in the world it is usually to strike out against the undead), but are equally accused of being undead by the Mercurians.

So the 3 death divine slots are reserved for special spells only accessible to the Sidar, though I don't know what they will be yet. Think of stuff that matches the above concept more than the typical fantasy death stuff.


Okay, are they turned into shades while they are still alive?
Also, what are their opinons on hell?

Is it Pact of the Nilhorn?

I'm glad you liked the idea.

Nope I put it in the ideas under consideration post. I called it the Soulforge.

Okay, are they turned into shades while they are still alive?
Also, what are their opinons on hell?

Yeah, they are still alive. Their feelings about hell are the same as others, general nasty place that is best avoided at all costs. They are typically very passionate about something in life and they want to keep doing it past the time they are supposed to die. There are a lot of Sidar mages and artists. Ironically they lose the passion for their tasks within a few centuries and often remain entombed with their half finished great works doing nothing (in enough time they lose the need to sleep, eat or drink).

The most effecitve Sidar accept their state to become guardians, everwatchful and virtually immune to personal failings and bribery they are as vigiliant as magical guardians but less conspicuous and more intellegent.

Nope I put it in the ideas under consideration post. I called it the Soulforge.

Good name.

Well then what does Pact of the Nilhorn do?
Great, viking sounding, name.

Some thoughts on the Sidar spells:

Since they are opposed to the undead, one of their spells might be harmful against them. We already have Destroy Undead as a spell, but maybe the Sidar should get something even stronger. I think it would be quite nice to have some of the more shady characters be able to deal with the undead more effectively than the traditional priests of light and life, and perhaps that would be fitting for a dark fantasy setting like FFH.

I think their Divine 3 spell should involve self-sacrifice. Perhaps something about releasing the contained energies of their soul, which are extremely strained due to their extended lifespan, and then have it create some powerful effect in the area around it. Perhaps their soul's final release and departure, when made voluntarily, would cause portions of the souls of surrounding creatures, friends as well as foes, to be carried along with it, dealing damage and perhaps removing promotions as well.

Some thoughts on the Sidar spells:

Since they are opposed to the undead, one of their spells might be harmful against them. We already have Destroy Undead as a spell, but maybe the Sidar should get something even stronger. I think it would be quite nice to have some of the more shady characters be able to deal with the undead more effectively than the traditional priests of light and life, and perhaps that would be fitting for a dark fantasy setting like FFH.

I think their Divine 3 spell should involve self-sacrifice. Perhaps something about releasing the contained energies of their soul, which are extremely strained due to their extended lifespan, and then have it create some powerful effect in the area around it. Perhaps their soul's final release and departure, when made voluntarily, would cause portions of the souls of surrounding creatures, friends as well as foes, to be carried along with it, dealing damage and perhaps removing promotions as well.

Self sacrifice is very un-Sidar. But maybe they become something else...

So would the sidar spells probably be economic and not military?

Possibly Air Divine II spell:
Air bubble- Target unit may move over water, but if attacked it loses the ability.

Good name.

Well then what does Pact of the Nilhorn do?
Great, viking sounding, name.

Pack of the Nilhorn was intended to be an early game wonder that granted you 3 hill giants. The Nilhorn are a clan of giants. I never really did anything with it, it just never took the time to make it.

Pack of the Nilhorn was intended to be an early game wonder that granted you 3 hill giants. The Nilhorn are a clan of giants. I never really did anything with it, it just never took the time to make it.

Well in phase two that probably will be less needed, because you can go fight hill giants, and then capture and build them.

What if instead you made Pact of the Nilhorn to give you Great Giant Points (like the demon points). These guys would be large, and more powerfult han ordinary hill giants. Like an early version of Gate to the Abyss.

Different note: could the gypsy civ be able to cage giants?

Another possible air divine II spell:
Holy Thunder- Deal a lot of lightning type damage to one unit, demon, shade, and undead types take double damage.

I try to go through and check out all the spells in this list and add the ones I like to the first post. If I add one the rest of you disagree with speak up and let me know. If you think I missed a good one let me know and I will consider it again.

I try to go through and check out all the spells in this list and add the ones I like to the first post. If I add one the rest of you disagree with speak up and let me know. If you think I missed a good one let me know and I will consider it again.

Which list? You mean this entire thread?

Note: I think that Sun Sor I should reveal all units, not just the invisible ones.

Sun Sum III: Blazing Demon
Summons a powerful demon type creature with 3 moves and blits that automatically summons a fireball whenever it kills an enemy

Sun Div I: Shining Sword
Target normal unit gains an equipment named Sun Sword. It gives it a large bonus against demon and shades.

Sun Div II: Sun Savior
Castable only in Hell. Turns a hell square into a normal square, but if a barb, undead, shade or demon unit ever stands on it then it becomes a hell square again.

Sun Div III: Halo
Gain control of target angel unit.

The air version of summon storm can damage your own units, but the nature version cannot? It at least appears that way from the spell description. I can't see much use for a spell that would damage your own units.

The air version of summon storm can damage your own units, but the nature version cannot? It at least appears that way from the spell description. I can't see much use for a spell that would damage your own units.

Hmmm... there should only be one. So what do you think, should a thunderstorm be an air or nature spell?

It depends: are there other ways to put out forest fires? If no, then it could be both.

But to answer the question, I think it falls better into the air category.

To replace the nature version-maybe an area effect (3x3 around caster) effect root?

Air Spell.

Nature can have something that roots a unit, and if succesful creates a forest there. Something like that.

Here's another wacky nature or life spell idea:

Move/copy terrain food bonus.

Move- select terrain bonus and it vanishes from the tile square. Then move the unit to another square, and the bonus can be created there. If the unit is killed while in transition, the bonus is lost. Should only work with animal bonuses. Make this one life.

Plant resources: allow them to be copied, but make it take a long long time. 20 turns to copy, then 40 turns to paste into a new square and the unit is lost when done. Make this one nature 3.

Body divine I:
Vampirism- Target unit becomes vampire type until end of turn and gains Vampiric promotion: flies, +25% against non-disciples, heals self with 50% of damage dealt when kills a creature.

LIFE SPELLS:
Sor II- Healing Spring
Target lake or river gains a 25% defensive bonus (attacking across the river), and heals units in it or adjacent to is extra 20% each turn
Sor III- Amulet
Creates an equipment that gives its wearer a +25% heal rate. Amulet is passed to a unit that kills the wearer
Sum II- Unicorn
Creates a medium powered mounted type unit with bonuses against undead. 50% of the health of units killed by the unicorn is given to the caster

Sidar Divine Spells:
1. Imprison Spirit- Sacrifice a unit of level 5 or greater. Target wonder in a city has it's effects doubled until this spell is used again for another wonder int he same city.
2. Change to Spirit- Sacrifice a unit of level 4 or greater. Target city enters a golden age. Multiple spells don't stack in one city. Hero's sacrificed this way give golden ages for each city on the continent.
3. Pray to god- Nothing

Alternates for Dimensional Sphere-

Divine1:Remove Unit. Makes a random unit in the target square vanish for 5-10 turns. Unit will re-appear when the duration is up. Usefull for weakening stacks.
Divine2:Remove Land. Makes the target square no longer effectively exist for the duration. Units entering the square from one side appear on the opposite side, only using one movement point. Towns can no longer work the square. Lasts 5-10 turns or until dispelled. Cannot be cast in or on a city.
Divine3:Remove Reality. Creates a magical hole in space-time. Units in the square are randomly either destroyed, teleported to a random square on the map, or held in stasis outside of time for 5-10 turns. All units in all adjecent squares have a 50% chance of being sucked into the rift each turn. Lasts 5-10 turns or until dispelled. cannot be cast in or on a city.

Earth Sphere-

Divine1-CaltropsEmpowers the ground to attack enemies that walk upon it. The ground grows spiky protrusions that damage the feet of those who walk over it.

Divine2-CatapultCauses seige damage or collateral damage as would a catapult without the need for one.

Divine3-Stoneskin. Each unit in the target square gains the Stoneskin promotion, which absorbs 100% of its health in damage before being removed.

Alternates for Dimensional Sphere-

Divine1:Remove Unit. Makes a random unit in the target square vanish for 5-10 turns. Unit will re-appear when the duration is up. Usefull for weakening stacks.
Divine2:Remove Land. Makes the target square no longer effectively exist for the duration. Units entering the square from one side appear on the opposite side, only using one movement point. Towns can no longer work the square. Lasts 5-10 turns or until dispelled. Cannot be cast in or on a city.
Divine3:Remove Reality. Creates a magical hole in space-time. Units in the square are randomly either destroyed, teleported to a random square on the map, or held in stasis outside of time for 5-10 turns. All units in all adjecent squares have a 50% chance of being sucked into the rift each turn. Lasts 5-10 turns or until dispelled. cannot be cast in or on a city.

I love these. maybe have remove unit remove 2 untis instead, and make these into the divine spells. Also, what does remove land do if there are units on the square?

It would have the same effect as the divine1 version- the unit vanishes for the duration of the spell. I see it as a seige spell. You can get your units to the city faster, and the target city can no longer work the improvement, which means you can deny it to them without having to destroy it and rebuild it later, good for fast seiges where you plan on keeping the city.

The chance to destroy a unit in the divine3 version would be very small-1-5%, otherwise it's too powerfull. It's a very chaotic spell, I think it would be good for disrupting invading SoDs or closing off choke points.

How about div III doesn't destory any units, the ones it would destroy are sent to random squares in hell.

But what if hell hasn't been unlocked yet? Would it matter even? I still don't understand where hell is supposed to be in game. Wilderness gives one place for it to show up, but before I came up with that idea you are left with switching to an entirely new map (tedious), or somehow expanding the existing map (weird on a globe), or replacing a starting civ and having its land unaccessable by force-feild .

If it doesn't matter about hell, then sending the 'destroyed' ones there is a good idea.

But what if hell hasn't been unlocked yet? Would it matter even? I still don't understand where hell is supposed to be in game. Wilderness gives one place for it to show up, but before I came up with that idea you are left with switching to an entirely new map (tedious), or somehow expanding the existing map (weird on a globe), or replacing a starting civ and having its land unaccessable by force-feild .

If it doesn't matter about hell, then sending the 'destroyed' ones there is a good idea.

I'm not sure exactly how hell will work, but the way i see it you won't get a level 3 divine spell until the en of the game, and hell is unlocked in the middle.

Hell should be a seperate map with the same dimensions as the main map. And if units get banished to hell before the portals are opened to hell..... well then its just going to really suck to be then. Or maybe the player will be able to take an outpost there and hold it until his civ is able to get to it.

Body Divine I: Flesh Sheild. Creates a defensive unit with its strength based on the total strength of each unit in its stack. Caster dies.

Body Divine I: Flesh Sheild. Creates a defensive unit with its strength based on the total strength of each unit in its stack. Caster dies.

I first read this as Bovine I: Flesh Shield. I thought you had created a new cow sphere.

I first read this as Bovine I: Flesh Shield. I thought you had created a new cow sphere.

Maybe we can have a new cow unit type?

There seems to be quite a few people complaining about the lack of a cure disease spell for the veil. I agree that cure disease is not particularly in character for the veil religion, but perhaps they could have something which accomplished the same at a greater cost. I was thinking along the lines of something like this:

Rite of Transfer:

Moves all negative conditions from one unit to another. Kills the caster.

It would be too costly for use on your regular units, who would have to put up with disease, but would allow you to heal important high-lvl units like Rosier the Fallen.
Don't know which sphere it should be.

There seems to be quite a few people complaining about the lack of a cure disease spell for the veil. I agree that cure disease is not particularly in character for the veil religion, but perhaps they could have something which accomplished the same at a greater cost. I was thinking along the lines of something like this:

Rite of Transfer:

Moves all negative conditions from one unit to another. Kills the caster.

It would be too costly for use on your regular units, who would have to put up with disease, but would allow you to heal important high-lvl units like Rosier the Fallen.
Don't know which sphere it should be.

What if we allowed them to buy Life 1 (cure disease) on level up. They wouldn't get it for free like the other priests, but players would have the option of earning it if they were willing to spend the level up for it.

I guess that would work, but I still don't think it fits the veil to be curing disease. The veil should really be the example of disease being a two-edged sword. They use it to weaken their enemies, but also suffer from it themselves to some extent.

I think a more thematic solution would be to give the Veil units access to an "undead" promotion. (the unit is ritualistically murdered, and its soul stored in a phylactery)This promotion would make the unit immune to disease, but still allow it to carry it if it has it. The unit loses a promotion, but a player now has the option to use disease to maximum effect if he's carefull with his units.

I think it would be also cool if these undead units, when slain, rose again as strength 3 skeletons a random number of turns later.

Oh.....and if the player ever switches religions from the Veil at a later time, or adopts free religion, all undead units abandon them, or turn into dust.

What if we allowed them to buy Life 1 (cure disease) on level up. They wouldn't get it for free like the other priests, but players would have the option of earning it if they were willing to spend the level up for it.

I like this idea most.

After thinking about it for a while, the problem I see with only giving ashen priests the ability to heal disease with a promotion is that it makes them weaker than all other priests without any compensating strength.

Another problem is that it forces them to cleanse the disease that they are using as a weapon from their units. Why have the ability to spread disease if you need to keep removing it from your own units?

A general ability for their units to be more disease resistant either via the undeath promotion I proposed or some other promotion available with a death mana node would allow the veil to use disease without having to remove it from their units that they are trying to spread it with.

Also, I think it would be a good idea if the health of cities with a diseased unit stationed there was lowered by some amount. One per unit might be too much, but one for any number of units might work.

In general, I think that the Veil should use the disease it spreads to its advantage, not try to spread it with one hand, and fight it with the other.

After thinking about it for a while, the problem I see with only giving ashen priests the ability to heal disease with a promotion is that it makes them weaker than all other priests without any compensating strength.

Another problem is that it forces them to cleanse the disease that they are using as a weapon from their units. Why have the ability to spread disease if you need to keep removing it from your own units?

A general ability for their units to be more disease resistant either via the undeath promotion I proposed or some other promotion available with a death mana node would allow the veil to use disease without having to remove it from their units that they are trying to spread it with.

Also, I think it would be a good idea if the health of cities with a diseased unit stationed there was lowered by some amount. One per unit might be too much, but one for any number of units might work.

In general, I think that the Veil should use the disease it spreads to its advantage, not try to spread it with one hand, and fight it with the other.

Yeah, Im on the fence about this one. I cant find a clean solution I like. The veil uses undead, but it doesn't want to make everyone undead. And Im not sold on the idea of allowing them to buy the cure disease ability either. I went ahead and made Rosier immune to disease, which should help.

Added Transmutation- new Divine Earth 1 spell.

Yeah, Im on the fence about this one. I cant find a clean solution I like. The veil uses undead, but it doesn't want to make everyone undead. And Im not sold on the idea of allowing them to buy the cure disease ability either. I went ahead and made Rosier immune to disease, which should help.

Another way to look at it is from the persepctive of the Veil player. If you are playing the Veil, why would you make diseased corpses? The disease always spreads back to you, and you have the worst abilities to deal with the infection. The answer is that you don't use them. At least I don't. The last time I used them, I had a two-pronged assault against a neighbor nation. One prong had diseased corpses and other units in it, the second did not with the idea that I didn't want the disease anywhere near my units or nation. My units in the second prong all caught disease and became ineffective in enemy lands. The AI had transfered some diseased units from one side of its territory to the other. The second prong was all wiped out because they could not effectively heal in enemy lands, and I had to sue for peace minus a city. I got beaten by my own weapon.

The promotion that gives the units immunity to disease doesn't have to be them becomming undead. It could be some vague mumbo jumbo spell cast by ritualists that only lasts 10 turns that does the trick. It could be a promotion that all units created under a special undead civic get. Or something that requires a certain building. But it should be something that makes disease use a viable strategy.

Added Transmutation- new Divine Earth 1 spell.

Not trying to sound nasty, but you forgot to give credit to someone (not me) on this spell.

The spell itself was Kael's own idea, my idea was a civic which worked quite differently.

Well of all the ideas i've heard so far i think the transfer disease is the best. Maybe they can even beef it up by taking disease from 3 units and making one target unit get the plauge.

Not trying to sound nasty, but you forgot to give credit to someone (not me) on this spell.

Yeah its just a blurry line. Corlindale was the inspiration for the idea. In the end this whole process is colaborative and everyone has contributed more than they were credited for. You in particular, I can't think of an aspect of the game that you haven't influenced at some level. Even the ideas from you that I reject usually end up coming back in some form. Where do you draw the line? I don't know.

I know you were just trying to point out a slip, and thats cool. I just wanted to point out that especially as we move on the concepts are going to be much more a mind meld. This phase of FfH is intentionally much more collaborative than the last, and it will be an even better mod because of it.

Body Divine: Feast on Flesh. +50% of the hp of each unit killed by target unit are added to the caster's health.

Creation Divine 3: Living Machine-Turns a non-living unit into a living unit. Basically turns golems into melee type. Makes spells lose the summoned promotion. Siege Weapons get +50%. All until end of turn (summoned units don't die, and can be kept alive perpetually by this spell being cast non-stop)

Creation Divine 3: Living Machine-Turns a non-living unit into a living unit. Basically turns golems into melee type. Makes spells lose the summoned promotion. Siege Weapons get +50%. All until end of turn (summoned units don't die, and can be kept alive perpetually by this spell being cast non-stop)

I like the ability to make enchanted creatures alive. Make golems into living units that can earn xp and level ("Im a real boy!"). We need a better name though.

Death- Divine1 (allowable for anyone with a death node)

Resist rot. Gives units in the caster's tile immunity to disease for ten turns, but doesn't remove any diseases that they have.

I like the ability to make enchanted creatures alive. Make golems into living units that can earn xp and level ("Im a real boy!"). We need a better name though.

Release from Bondage?
Liven?

Inspiration

Inspiration

Inspiration for what?

Death- Divine1 (allowable for anyone with a death node)

Resist rot. Gives units in the caster's tile immunity to disease for ten turns, but doesn't remove any diseases that they have.

To much AI requirement, casting in the right order to keep the units from becoming diseased, getting priests to recast at appropriate times (before the duration is about to expire.

Then I think that making the civic, Sacrifice the Weak give resistance to disease for all units created under it would be the best choice. That way all Veil civs have the option to use disease, at a cost of health in their cities, without having to have weaker priests that can barely cure disease running around behind their units, running back and forth into friendly lands, and curing the same disease that you are trying to spread. While it's funny to watch AI invasions fail because their units are all diseased, it's frustrating to have your own invasions fail for the same reason. What I usually try to do in my games is to found the Ashen Veil, then not adopt it and neutralize it (the free ritualist is nice too). I like the religion, but it stll needs a bit of balancing.


Inspiration for what?


The spell name. If you follow the entymology, it makes perfect sense.

The spell name. If you follow the entymology, it makes perfect sense.

Okay, any of these works for me.

Replaced Death Rattle with Lichdom (converts the caster into a Lich). Death Rattle will probably be used as a specific unit ability.

Replaced Death Rattle with Lichdom (converts the caster into a Lich). Death Rattle will probably be used as a specific unit ability.

What's a Lich?

What's a Lich?

:eek: Undead spellcaster. Specifically a powerful mage that traps his soul in a gem or another sort of phylactery and gains eternal life by becoming undead. They retain their intellect and spell abilities. They typically look like skeletons, usually wearing robes, jewelry and staves that they used in life.

As to how this translates to the mod, I don't know. They should lose access to some spheres and gain increased casting ability in others. They will become undead which will confer some advantages and disadvatages (mostly disadvantages).

I like the ability to make enchanted creatures alive. Make golems into living units that can earn xp and level ("Im a real boy!"). We need a better name though.

How about Animate?

Liches would be really cool. I think phylacteries should be added as well. The creation of a lich could spawn a phylactery item with 0 move and 0 power, which could be carried by other units(or by the lich itself, though that might not be very smart). As long as the phylactery of a given lich exists, it will have the Immortal promotion(perhaps it will respawn by its phylacteri rather than in the capital city). If the phylactery is destroyed, the lich unit loses immortality and dies immediatly and permanently.

How about Animate?

Liches would be really cool. I think phylacteries should be added as well. The creation of a lich could spawn a phylactery item with 0 move and 0 power, which could be carried by other units(or by the lich itself, though that might not be very smart). As long as the phylactery of a given lich exists, it will have the Immortal promotion(perhaps it will respawn by its phylacteri rather than in the capital city). If the phylactery is destroyed, the lich unit loses immortality and dies immediatly and permanently.

I'll add it as a potential equipment in the equipment thread.

Animate sounds like you are making it move around and not that you have made it become alive.

Animate sounds like you are making it move around and not that you have made it become alive.

Ah, yes, my english isn't always as good as I think it is.
Other suggestions, then:
Soul Gift
Vitalize Material

Ah, yes, my english isn't always as good as I think it is.
Other suggestions, then:
Soul Gift
Vitalize Material

Ahh.. run Soul Gift through a thesaurus and I come up with Bestow Vitae (give life). What do you guys think?

I give Bestow Vitae a :goodjob:

Bestow Vitae makes me think of some Asheron's Call spell or something. This is not a democracy, but I'll vote no just the same. :P

how about
Gift of Amathaon
Amathaon's Boon
Awaken
Vivification

Bestow Vitae makes me think of some Asheron's Call spell or something. This is not a democracy, but I'll vote no just the same. :P

how about
Gift of Amathaon
Amathaon's Boon
Awaken
Vivification

I like Awaken. Loki, what do you think? It was your spell idea after all.

I like Awaken. Loki, what do you think? It was your spell idea after all.

Awaken has the same problem as animate. I like bestow vitae better personally. Awaken works better as an earth divine that turns a hill into a grassland and creates a bunch of earth elementals.

edit: btw vivify sounds good as well.

I think that root should work extra well in forests.

I cut the divine spells down to 2 ranks instead of 3. A priest level unit (t3) will gain the divine 1 spells and high priest level unit (t4) will gain the divine 2 spells. This was done because:

1. I don't think disciples should have spells.
2. To enforce the fact that the priest line doesnt have the casting ability of the mage line.
3. To take 21 spells off of our plate.

I cut the divine spells down to 2 ranks instead of 3. A priest level unit (t3) will gain the divine 1 spells and high priest level unit (t4) will gain the divine 2 spells. This was done because:

1. I don't think disciples should have spells.
2. To enforce the fact that the priest line doesnt have the casting ability of the mage line.
3. To take 21 spells off of our plate.

I like this idea. However, I think that disciples should start with something that allows them to get a divine spell after they level twice.

What if there were a spell that did a lot of damage against heros, but none against other things? Maybe an evil spell?

What if there were a spell that did a lot of damage against heros, but none against other things? Maybe an evil spell?

If we were going to use this mechanic I would rather use it as a unit ability instead of a spell. It just seems to make more sense there. Maybe an assassin hero who gained a significant bonus when attacking other heros?

If we were going to use this mechanic I would rather use it as a unit ability instead of a spell. It just seems to make more sense there. Maybe an assassin hero who gained a significant bonus when attacking other heros?

Yeah. I'm not sure what civ this would work best for, maybe grigori or svaltar(dark elves)?

Yeah. I'm not sure what civ this would work best for, maybe grigori or svaltar(dark elves)?

Thats exactly what I was wondering. I was thinking of putting it on Rathus (the Sidar) but I agree that the Grigori and the Svaltarfar work equally well. The Grigori (Branding) is probably the best bet because the other 2 civs aren't due for release until Shadow and we need the Grigori up and running for Light.

The Grigori also need a very special hero because they will be incented to not be religious, so they won't have access to the religious heroes.

Okay then, what if their hero was a 10 strength Recon Type that was given with fanaticism (to encourage them to research that) and got +100% versus heros. Also, his spells worked twice as well against heros. 1 movement.

One of death's sumoning should be "ANgel of Death".
A medium strength angel with stealth attack and a lot of collateral

Chaos Divine 2: Terror
Each unit in target stack has a chance to retreat randomly, and to deal damage to another unit in the stack.

Perhaps "confusion" would be a better spell name for a chaos spell.

The chance to proc for that spell would have to be pretty low, or it would be super powerful.

Perhaps "confusion" would be a better spell name for a chaos spell.

The chance to proc for that spell would have to be pretty low, or it would be super powerful.

Well it wouldn't work against cities, and perhaps it should work better on lower strength units?

Another chaos spell would be "madness of battle".
Tragets one unit--until end of turn, that unit fights the weakest in a stack, instead of the strongest. Works on both allies and enemies.

Dimensional: Remove obstacle--target square's defense value becomes zero.
Alternate realities--target unit gains a 50% chance of being sent down to hell, and a 50% of being sent away from hell.

Well it wouldn't work against cities, and perhaps it should work better on lower strength units?

Yeah, perhaps it's proc chance can be related to the unit's strength. We really need a moral stat like in SMAC, because that would be even better to use, and not just for this, but lots of stuff.

Chaos Divine 2: Terror
Each unit in target stack has a chance to retreat randomly, and to deal damage to another unit in the stack.

Functionally this is the same as the tornado spell, deals some damage and has a chance to toss units to surrounding tiles. I like the idea of the tornado more, but the fear idea has the advantage that we could create units that were immune to the effect like undead and demons. But Im hesitant to have 2 spells with such similiar effects.

That said we may use fear as an aura effect on a special hero that makes him unable to be attacked by living units of less than a certain level.

Another chaos spell would be "madness of battle".
Tragets one unit--until end of turn, that unit fights the weakest in a stack, instead of the strongest. Works on both allies and enemies.

Dimensional: Remove obstacle--target square's defense value becomes zero.
Alternate realities--target unit gains a 50% chance of being sent down to hell, and a 50% of being sent away from hell.

The first is the "Marksman" ability. I gotta figure out a way to get that added. I want it to be an ability for the Marksman and a few other units.

Alternate Realities sounds like Banish, has a chance to send the unit to Hell.

Remove Obstacle could be a decent spell, Ill add it.

I went through and labeled all of the spells that won't be used in Light (Shadow sphere won't be in yet) and the divine spheres that don't have an associated religion so we can focus on the ones that do. I also labeled which divine speheres are going to be available to each religion so as you think of the spells you can have an idea what religion will be using them.

Here's a simple earth one: fertile ground. Target farm gives +1 food for some time (while the caster is on it?)

A creation one: Move resource. Basically allows the Kuriotates to mvoe resources into their territory.

Here's a simple earth one: fertile ground. Target farm gives +1 food for some time (while the caster is on it?)

Needs something more interesting. Rank1 spells should be minor but they should haave some practical use such that someone will consider buying the sphere with this spell on levelup).

A creation one: Move resource. Basically allows the Kuriotates to mvoe resources into their territory.

i dont know that this ability is interesting enough to make it worth the time it would take to teach the ai how to use it.

I did some spell restructuring in the first post. I removed the Sun sphere for the "Light" requirements. I was just having a hard time deferintiating between it and Fire. When we get to "Shadow" we can add it and shadow in at the same time, which should provide us a good opportunity to play them against each other.

Several spells traded places and I tried to adjust them more from the aspect of what units will get access to them and when.

For the sun II summoning, what if they could summon a "shining golem"
This guy would have medium strength, but the space where he died and all adjacent to it would be revealed for the player for a few turns. Also revels invisible units.

I added in summons for summoning a Wraith (powerful undead spirit, usually a person of great evil who died under the effects of a curse) and summoning the Host of the Einherjar (just warrior spirits summoned from the vault of Junil).

I need a special ability for each to make them a little more than just a set of stats. Any ideas?

A Wraith can permanently kill units with immortal promotion. Perhaps it also adds the "wither" effect on creatures it attacks(Entropy 1).

Perhaps Einhejar create other einhejar when they kill stuff?

A Wraith can permanently kill units with immortal promotion. Perhaps it also adds the "wither" effect on creatures it attacks(Entropy 1).

Perfect, though I changed it to the enervation effect (halves the victims xp).

Or maybe the einhejar allow their caster to cast again by killing stuff.

Or maybe the einhejar allow their caster to cast again by killing stuff.

Still not quite right. These guys are warrior spirits gone on to heaven to spend their days celebrating and practicing for battle. This spell calls them back temporarily to fight for the caster.

Maybe give them blitz and full heal if they win combat?

Still not quite right. These guys are warrior spirits gone on to heaven to spend their days celebrating and practicing for battle. This spell calls them back temporarily to fight for the caster.

Maybe give them blitz and full heal if they win combat?

How about granting them a new chance to live when they score a major victory. So make a real unit out of them when they kill an enemy that has twice their strength or something.

How about granting them a new chance to live when they score a major victory. So make a real unit out of them when they kill an enemy that has twice their strength or something.

Thats awesome. I can actually make it so that they stick around as long as they win a battle every turn. If you don't use them to fight, then they go away.

I might use that mechanic for both the big law and chaos summoned unit.

I see a bit of unbalance between the Sorcery and the summoning at our momentary configuration. The problem is that each sphere gives fighting power to the conjurer in contast to the mage that only gets real firepower by the fire sphere (at the moment). this makes most of the summoners quite equal. the only difference is the power of the summoned units. How about
a) creating a lot of non combat units for summoners.
There comes to mind:
Summon helpful spirit (akind of worker thet stays for three turns),
summon birds or magical eyes that are used as flying air recconnaisance,
summon minor metal elemental that can be used for production in the city (ok that one would force micromanegement, so let ist stay for some turns and add to production as long as it is placed in a city.).
summon watcher (a unit with spiing ability that stays for some turns and allows espionage)

b) make some of the powerfull beasts harder to summon. for example the balor or the host of einha... are quite powerfull compared to the fire elemental (all level 3 at the moment) so there are different ideas to make them harder to summon.
- summoning one of those will leave the summoner without casting ability for some turns.
- summoning one will cost the caster some XP each time.
- those powerfull beasts need more than one kind of magic (probably not a good idea as it again would make a combination of spheres more powerfull and therefor take choices instead of giving them)
- give more limits to the units:
#(dont know if this is tho or if that works) treants should not only be summonable just in forest, they should only be able to move within forests.
#host of einh.. does not fight against good civilization.
and so forth...

Earth sum I: Summon Golem Defender--
Defensive Golem type, not destroyed at end of turn. limit of 1 per caster. Automatically defends its casteragainst all attacks that would target him.

Entropy div II: Waste--
Destroy Target Resource. It is redistributed to a random unoccupied space in hell.

Law sor II: Strengthen--
Target Unit gets +25% strength until end of turn.
Law sum I: Law Bringer--
Angel unit medium strength gets a large bonus when attacking units/cities belonging to an evil civ. Can travel on Water.

Life sor II: Spring of Life--
Target river becomes enchanted. Gives double city health, +50% heal for units adjacent to it, and +1 food for farms adjacent to it. One per river.
Life sum I: Hunting Unicorn--
Medium strength cavalry unit. Casts a life spell when it kills a living enemy.

Mind div I: Subvert--
Can be cast on rival units without causing war. You can see everything that unit can see. One per caster.
Mind div II: Hideous Thoughts--
Target unit becomes a demon type. Gets +25% strength promotion, but immediate -50% hp. Allies or enemies.

Nature sor I: Treefolk Assistance--
Target unit in a forest or jungle gets +2 first strikes, can only be cast on human units.

more later.

Earth sum I: Summon Golem Defender--
Defensive Golem type, not destroyed at end of turn. limit of 1 per caster. Automatically defends its casteragainst all attacks that would target him.

I love the concept of this, kind of a guardian angel. I don't know that it will be a golem unit since they are crafted instead of summoned but I do love the idea of a protection spell on a unit that kicks up when they attacked and provides a defender. We will definitly have to fit this idea in.

Entropy div II: Waste--
Destroy Target Resource. It is redistributed to a random unoccupied space in hell.

This I see as too painful. Losing a resource without the ability to regain it (other civ declares war and wastes the resource before anything can be done) would just be frustrating.

Law sor II: Strengthen--
Target Unit gets +25% strength until end of turn.

Needs more, something more flavorful.

Law sum I: Law Bringer--
Angel unit medium strength gets a large bonus when attacking units/cities belonging to an evil civ. Can travel on Water.

I love the concept of getting a bonus against Evil civs. Gotta have it and its perfect for this unit. Im toying with the 1st step summons having restrictions like chalid mentioned (sand lion only in desert, treant in forests) and I think this is a perfect restriction for the law summon. I might take it a little further and only allow it to attack evil units.

Life sor II: Spring of Life--
Target river becomes enchanted. Gives double city health, +50% heal for units adjacent to it, and +1 food for farms adjacent to it. One per river.

Im kinda terrained out right now. It seems like we already have so many terrain spells.

Life sum I: Hunting Unicorn--
Medium strength cavalry unit. Casts a life spell when it kills a living enemy.

Violates the princess rule (nothing that would appear on a little girsl bedroom wall should be in a dark fantasy mod). But I could go with the idea for the unit. What effect do you think would be best when a unit is killed?

Mind div I: Subvert--
Can be cast on rival units without causing war. You can see everything that unit can see. One per caster.

Interesting. I'm not sure how the AI will handle it (its line of sight process is "murky") but I will add it in and we can pull it later, i like the idea.

Mind div II: Hideous Thoughts--
Target unit becomes a demon type. Gets +25% strength promotion, but immediate -50% hp. Allies or enemies.

This is such a perfect overlord spell. I don't like the demon type though. It may be enough to give the hp loss and the enraged promotion (improved attack, reduced defence).

Nature sor I: Treefolk Assistance--
Target unit in a forest or jungle gets +2 first strikes, can only be cast on human units.

Another good idea. I can have this stay on as long as the unit stays in a forest.

more later.

Keep them coming!

The mind div II one sounds like a good way to suicide your unit....unless it lasts forever and can be cast far from combat.

I actually like the life sor II, spring of life idea alot.

Life sum I-Summon wisp. This unit acts as a medic in all surrounding squares, moves like a gunship (3 moves, ignores terrain), cannot attack, and can only be killed by spells.

I think it would be a good idea if the Mind div I spell only worked 50% of the time on a random chance per turn. So that way you can't see everything the AI is doing. Casting it on a stealth unit would make that unit permanently useless. There should probably be something preventing that.

For entropy div II. How about it creates something similar to fallout terrain (-3food,gold,ham) that can be cleansed by a worker in a few turns in the same way. You could wreck an enemy's lands during a war so that it takes longer than normal for them to recover, but they can still do so.

Law sorc II- Target unit comes under the iron rule of law, and fufills it's last orders even if slain. A unit targeted by this spell can still make one more move or attack even after it has been slain. After this, it falls over dead.

Treants only being able to move in forests makes no sense to me. Perhaps desert terrain could lower their strength a bit though. Maybe even make it permanent until they get back into a forest.

For the other summoning imbalances, I think the relative unit strengths should be tweaked rather than adding even more layers of complexity.

Perhaps there could also be some very, very, very powerful summoned units, but the catch could be that summoning would kill the caster, sacrificing an expensive unit to gain the use of an extremely powerful unit for 1 turn. Demon type summons could be good candidates for this, perhaps the Balor should be boosted in power and get the drawback of killing the summoner. I don't know if 1 turn use would be too little for the price though, perhaps it could borrow the Host of the Eirnjhar effect of lingering as long as it wins combat.Sort of like the Bloodthirster unit from Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War.

Balancing sucha spell would be tricky. I has to be powerfull to come with such a price, but if it's that powerfull, it's probably overpowered. ( it becomes an easy win spell, and so what that you lose the unit)

Though, how about summons that have a GP, or happiness ( like Dis), cost, or even cost research points? You wouldn't spam them so much if the cost was high, so the power could be slightly higher.

Points to http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3904423&postcount=118

Law sor II: Rule of Law--
Reduces maintenance in the caster's city and increases trade route yeild.

Life sum I: Unicorn--
Perhaps allows caster to cast again if it kills an enemy?
Life sor II: Reward of Immortality--
Target high level unit has a 50% of gaining the immortality promotion the next time it kills an enemy.

Spirit sor I: Gaurdian angel--
Target unit becomes the caster's gaurdian angel. Basically, any attack that would hit the caster instead hits this unit. 1 per caster, must be in same square to work.

Nature div I: Ancient forest--
Makes an ancient forest. I think this is the best way to include ancient forests.

I know this isn't important at the moment, but I think that neither the sun nor shadow spheres should have summoning spells.

Nature div II: The trees have eyes--
Reveal all forests that are connected to the caster's forest by forests. Can only be cast on a forest.
Earth sum I: Dwarven Assistance--
Summons a dwarf. Can only be cast on hills. Medium strength, starts with guerilla I, II.

Entropy div I: Filth--
Target unit becomes diseased. can't be used on units immune to disease.

Water div I: Hurricane--
Deals a lot of damage to all ships in target sea tile and destroys all fishing/whaling boats in it.

I see a bit of unbalance between the Sorcery and the summoning at our momentary configuration. The problem is that each sphere gives fighting power to the conjurer in contast to the mage that only gets real firepower by the fire sphere (at the moment). this makes most of the summoners quite equal. the only difference is the power of the summoned units. How about
a) creating a lot of non combat units for summoners.
There comes to mind:
Summon helpful spirit (akind of worker thet stays for three turns),
summon birds or magical eyes that are used as flying air recconnaisance,
summon minor metal elemental that can be used for production in the city (ok that one would force micromanegement, so let ist stay for some turns and add to production as long as it is placed in a city.).
summon watcher (a unit with spiing ability that stays for some turns and allows espionage)

b) make some of the powerfull beasts harder to summon. for example the balor or the host of einha... are quite powerfull compared to the fire elemental (all level 3 at the moment) so there are different ideas to make them harder to summon.
- summoning one of those will leave the summoner without casting ability for some turns.
- summoning one will cost the caster some XP each time.
- those powerfull beasts need more than one kind of magic (probably not a good idea as it again would make a combination of spheres more powerfull and therefor take choices instead of giving them)
- give more limits to the units:
#(dont know if this is tho or if that works) treants should not only be summonable just in forest, they should only be able to move within forests.
#host of einh.. does not fight against good civilization.
and so forth...

I think there is a ton of balancing to do. I'll take a first run at evening them out.

Im okay with making non-combat summon spells. But they have to match the flavor of "summoning". the easiest way to balance is to make oth options the same, but I don't want to make sorcery spells into summons just to even things out. Lunargents Summon Wisp spell is a good example of a non-combat summon. I like your idea for the air recon unit too.

I don't mind the treants being able to leave the forests. Their range is limited by their duration, and they have a significant bonus in forests so while they are out they are vulnerable.

I do think that some summons should have significant downsides, but only a handful. Most should just be well balanced (which they arent now). Ill try to get them a bit more even and we will see where we should go from there.

Spheres coming in later phases:

Air Sphere

Sorcery 1.
Sorcery 2. Chain Lightning- Summons a strength 12 lightning bolt that has the Blitz promotion


I don't think that this should be a sorcery spell. What if instead we made it a force summoning spell?

Law sor II: Rule of Law--
Reduces maintenance in the caster's city and increases trade route yeild.

I like using the guardsmen for this same effect instead of a spell.

Life sum I: Unicorn--
Perhaps allows caster to cast again if it kills an enemy?

Life sor II: Reward of Immortality--
Target high level unit has a 50% of gaining the immortality promotion the next time it kills an enemy.[/quote]

Rewarding for killing seems out of alignment with the life sphere.

Spirit sor I: Gaurdian angel--
Target unit becomes the caster's gaurdian angel. Basically, any attack that would hit the caster instead hits this unit. 1 per caster, must be in same square to work.

I like this idea, but I like it better as a stoneskin spell (deflects a certain number of attacks), and the summoning spell you recommended that does a similiar effect.

Nature div I: Ancient forest--
Makes an ancient forest. I think this is the best way to include ancient forests.

I was thinking that in fellowship lands there was just a certain low percentage chance that a forest would turn into an ancient forest each turn. That way players couldnt rush them (so you had to be fellowship for a while to get the effect) and there wasnt any micromanagement involved. What do you think?

I was thinking that in fellowship lands there was just a certain low percentage chance that a forest would turn into an ancient forest each turn. That way players couldnt rush them (so you had to be fellowship for a while to get the effect) and there wasnt any micromanagement involved. What do you think?

Yeap thats quite good... ;)

Life sor II: Reward of Immortality--
Target high level unit has a 50% of gaining the immortality promotion the next time it kills an enemy.

Rewarding for killing seems out of alignment with the life sphere.
[/QUOTE]

What if we put it as a divine? This seems to fit the mercurians nicely.

Removed the Xag-yi and Xeg-ya because... well... because it was a stupid idea.

Switched the first metamagic summon to a Djinn, which Chalid's "xasomething" model reminded me of.

Cut the creation sphere (combined the spells i liked the best into the nature sphere). Cut the dimensional sphere down to 1 spell.

Cut means completly removed or means will probably come back later ?

Cut means completly removed or means will probably come back later ?

Just cut for now. Moved from the 1st post to the 2nd post. I definitly want to have 21 spell spheres when we are done.

Water Div I:
Hurricane. Summons a fireball like thing that is twice as effective on the water and half as effective against non-coastal land targets.
Water Div II:
Whirlpool. Turns target water tile into a whirlpool. Ships moving into that tile are automatically sent into hell. That tile is no longer workable. All effects end after 5 turns.

Spirit Sphere
N.B. Trust should instead give you a bonus with a target civ and to cast it you must be in one of that player's centers of government.
Sor I:
Helpful Spirit. Summons a low strength spirit unit that has medic I promotion. 1 per caster.

I was trying to think of an adequate control for the Domination spell. What im playing with is that if the spell is resisted then the targets controlled gains control of the caster. Simulating a mental battle between the caster and the target, whichever way they go, they go together.

Okay, I need some help with a few empty spell slots. I've read the suggestions but I can't find anything that seems quite right. The slots we need are:

1. Entry 2 divine (the spell Veil priests start with).

2. Spirit 1 (the spell Elohim adepts start with).

3. Water 2 divine (the spell Overlord priests start with).

Let me know what you guys think, the more ideas the better.

I forgot to say this earlier, but for Flesh Golem, you probably don't want unitai_spell - thats just for short lived summons (my understanding was that flesh golemn is permenent). Same with Righteous Cause and the crusader. They should both use NO_UNITAI and let the DLL assign it.

I forgot to say this earlier, but for Flesh Golem, you probably don't want unitai_spell - thats just for short lived summons (my understanding was that flesh golemn is permenent). Same with Righteous Cause and the crusader. They should both use NO_UNITAI and let the DLL assign it.

Cool, Ill switch it, thanks.

Entry Div II:
Demonic guidance--Target caster becomes a demon and you gain some science.

Spirit Sor I:
Spirit Shield-Target creature gets immunity from all sorcery spells until next turn.

Water Div II:
Sea of Knowledge--Target coastal city gets 1 great scientist point for each water square it is working. One per turn limit.

Entry Div II:
Demonic guidance--Target caster becomes a demon and you gain some science.

This is pretty good, let me know if you have more ideas.

Spirit Sor I:
Spirit Shield-Target creature gets immunity from all sorcery spells until next turn.

This will come when the metamagic sphere comes in, we need something else for the spirit slot.

Water Div II:
Sea of Knowledge--Target coastal city gets 1 great scientist point for each water square it is working. One per turn limit.

Since this is the Overlord priests first spell id like to get something a bit more active, something they can go out and adventure with.

1. Entry 2 divine: Mark of Destruction. Target unit dies after 10 turns.(Unless the curse is dispelled before that happens). Doesn't work on Heroes.

2. Spirit 1 (the spell Elohim adepts start with):
Ethereal form. Caster cannot take damage, and gets 80% magic resist. Caster cannot attack or cast spells. Lasts for 5 turns.

3. Water 2 divine (the spell Overlord priests start with):
Maelstrom: Summons a Maelstrom unit with 4 movement. Once it has been moved it automatically becomes fortified on the sea square it ends its turn on, and may never be moved again. Any ship entering a Maelstrom is completely destroyed. A ship sailing within 1 or 2 squares of a Maelstrom has a % chance to be sucked into it(could be 20 for 1 square and 10 for 2 squares away) and be destroyed. This applies to both allied and enemies. Krakens are not harmed by Maelstroms, however. Maelstrom summoning is limited in the same way as raising skeletons, furthermore no maelstrom can exist within the area of effect(2 square radius) of another Maelstrom, to prevent complete blocking of the seas.

1. Entry 2 divine: Mark of Destruction. Target unit dies after 10 turns.(Unless the curse is dispelled before that happens). Doesn't work on Heroes.

Probably to powerful even with the delay.

2. Spirit 1 (the spell Elohim adepts start with):
Ethereal form. Caster cannot take damage, and gets 80% magic resist. Caster cannot attack or cast spells. Lasts for 5 turns.

There are some major technical hurdles with this spell, but I love the idea. Im going to add it as a dimensional spell and we will see about tackling it at a later date.

3. Water 2 divine (the spell Overlord priests start with):
Maelstrom: Summons a Maelstrom unit with 4 movement. Once it has been moved it automatically becomes fortified on the sea square it ends its turn on, and may never be moved again. Any ship entering a Maelstrom is completely destroyed. A ship sailing within 1 or 2 squares of a Maelstrom has a % chance to be sucked into it(could be 20 for 1 square and 10 for 2 squares away) and be destroyed. This applies to both allied and enemies. Krakens are not harmed by Maelstroms, however. Maelstrom summoning is limited in the same way as raising skeletons, furthermore no maelstrom can exist within the area of effect(2 square radius) of another Maelstrom, to prevent complete blocking of the seas.

I just checked in an immobile nature summon today (guardian vines) and I like it. This spell is a great idea but i cant even imagine how we will teach the ai to deal with it. Hmm..

I think (if some of the art guys can make a graphic for this) Im going to use this idea for a 3x3 tile sea feature. Use the map script that im using now to force exactly 1 on every map with water on it. Then have a chance of destroying ships that go through it like you mentioned (and when we get into "Fire" have it send the ships to hell instead). I think that would be a better showcase for your idea than the spell.

So let me know what more idea you guys have. :D

I think that the chaos marauder should be undisbandable, but quite strong. Summoning one is always a risk.

I think that the chaos marauder should be undisbandable, but quite strong. Summoning one is always a risk.

Good point, I will have to see how hard it is to keep a unit from being disbanded.

Fireballing or Meteorstorming ships seems a bit overpowered especially in combination with spell extension III.

I would propose to allow land units to defend against fireballs and meteors when on board of a ship (they should also be able to defend against drown btw.) so basically i would allow DOMAIN_LAND units to be able to defend agains DOMAIN_LAND units regardless of terrain. So the ship will be burned by collarteral damage but the units will die before the ship. (Unless you sent a ship in afterwards that sinks the ship as Landunits would not defend against that.)

I messed up this post. :(

I have been pwned by the internet

Collateral damage limit: is the minimum of lp a unit has after the collatteral attack, so increasing it actually makes the unit weaker meaning the Meteor should have an equal or lower value than the fireball ;)

Reducing the raw power seems absolutly reasonable as those spells are devastating for their colateral ability.

Maybe we could even reduce the move to 1 as spell extension allows it to go up by 3 points. And 5 is already the standard distance between two cities, so 4 as maximum spell distance sounds reasonable

So i would recommend
iCombat as you proposed.
base move 1 or 2
collateral damage limit 25 %
maximum targets 6 seems ok.

about the collateral damage i am not sure as i do not know how it works exactly. But if it does as i suspect (i think is correlated to the damage the unit would do in direct attack) then 80 and 100 seems reasonable (as the iCombat is reduced an increase for both seems a good idea).

The main advantage of the meteor will still be that it is three instead of 1.

I don't want to take fireball down to 1 base range because its range 2 movement is such a large part of the fun of it (though it may be worth cutting Extension III from the game). I will switching to the following based on your feedback:

Fireball:
[tab]iCombat: 3
[tab]Base move: 2
[tab]Collateral damage: 50
[tab]Collateral damage limit: 30
[tab]Collateral Damage targets: 6

Meteor:
[tab]iCombat: 5
[tab]Base move: 2
[tab]Collateral damage: 100
[tab]Collateral Damage limit: 20
[tab]Collateral Damage targets: 6

I just tried out the Water Walking spell, and it's really great. In fact, I think it may be slightly overpowered. My Archmage can stand in the ocean and shower coastal or inland cities with meteors, and if they don't have any boats nearby, there is nothing they can do about it. He can even reach inland cities which aren't able to built boats.

Some suggestions for weakening the spell a bit, ranked by severity:

1. A mage cannot cast Fire spells while standing on water. Makes sense in an odd sort of way, and prevents Meteor Shower, which is probably the most potent of the offensive spells. He would still be able to use all other spells from the safe distance, however.

2. A mage can ONLY cast water spells while standing on water. So he can basically just use Tsunami.

3. A mage cannot cast spells on water.

(Note: Even with one of the above restrictions, it will most likely still be possible to abuse the spell by using 1 move point to step inland, cast a spell, and then step into the sea again. Perhaps a mage loses all movement in the transition between water and land?)

4. Water walking is not permanent. It has a 5% chance to break each time a mage ends his turn standing on water. With this, none of the above restrictions would be needed, but it might be frustrating to risk that one's experienced Archmage drowned.

I also tested the Tsunami spell - it doesn't seem to do anything. I tried using it against a spearman, an improvement and an empty square, no effect in either of the cases.

Am I the only one who can't get the Dominate spell to work? I've only tried it against animals, and againts units of a civ I was at peace with, so perhaps that's the issue. For the latter it would make sense if it didn't work.

Am I the only one who can't get the Dominate spell to work? I've only tried it against animals, and againts units of a civ I was at peace with, so perhaps that's the issue. For the latter it would make sense if it didn't work.

Hmm.. I will check it out (and the Tsunami spell).

Am I the only one who can't get the Dominate spell to work? I've only tried it against animals, and againts units of a civ I was at peace with, so perhaps that's the issue. For the latter it would make sense if it didn't work.

Ohh.. it was broke, thanks. Fixed now.

Ouch, I just found a potential problem with Ring of Flames. I cast it next to a city, but there was also an innocent Balseraph Acrobat near me. Needless to say Perpentach declared war! Shouldn't this only damage enemies or at least give a warning when you might damage a non-enemy?

edit - Acrobat, not hunter

Is it alignment based? I accidentally cast it again with Alexis nearby and nothing happened to her, but something happened to my own unit 1 tile away! Bizarre. I think it should effect everyone, but maybe a warning would be good.

I think there should be an air sphere spell that pushes a unit back a space. Something like Gale or Torrent.

I think there should be an air sphere spell that pushes a unit back a space. Something like Gale or Torrent.

Tremor does that (Earth spell). Its actually speced as a Force spell (wave of force) and as a side effect of the Air tornado spell 9which may randomly distribute units in the effected square.

Ideas for new sphere's

Blood Sphere

Blood Curse: Caster loses 10% health, Target's health Degenerates

Blood Summon: Caster loses 20% health, summons Blood Demon.

Blood Heal: Caster loses 20% health, Target healed.

Cosmic Sphere

Star Reading: +2 Visibility

Constellation: +30% Strength

Shine: Target loses all movement points

Lunar Sphere

Full moon: Turns target into werewolf

Strong Moon: Turns Werewolf into next stage (blooded)

Moonlight: Turns unit invisible for that turn

Ideas for the summoning of Spirit Sphere:

Summoning: Summons Spirit, which is like a recon unit with no attack but no one can attack it.

Summoning II: Summons High Spirit, which summons a spirit of a demigod like spirit that aids allies The Order, or kills others The Veil

Air Sphere
Sorcery I: Gale - Pushes target stack one square back (If summoned, maybe it can give the attacked stack a 100% withdraw chance).

I was thinking about Wave of Force,

If tornado already does random stack dispersal a'la
XXX
XSX
XXX
(Where S is the stack and X is a possible unit landing location)

Maybe Wave of Force could do something more like
X
XSW
X
(Where W marks the tile that the Wave of Force entered the stack from)
So there's less overall dispersion, but the caster has more control over where the units go. If you add in a mid-to-high amount of non-collateral damage, It has the potential to seriously defang a stack of doom. Alternately, instead of causing unit damage, it could have a % chance to push units out of their square even if they're in a city, which would make it good for retaking recently captured cities.

Well, my idea probably sucks, but I'm putting it out there anyway so you can see if there's some aspect of it you like.

I really like the spell-sphere part of the FFH spell system. Lots of choices, yeah :) !
But the system how often you can cast a spell would be (in my humble opinion) much more intuitive if you'd attach a mana value to each unit and a mana cost to each spell. I did this for my modpack (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=167432) and I'm quite happy how well it works. It also allows for some interesting new promotions that either raise a unit's mana or it's mana regeneration.
As I said: I think it allows a better fine tuning about the frequency of spell casting and is more intuitive.

Do you already have an idea how you will implement a peacfull victory? (Don't know where to post this...)

I think it would be cool to have your 3 armages and 3 demon summunors gather in the holy city of your state religion to cast an enormous spell (comes with armageddon) that makes you win.

For Instance: "Superior Mind Control" for Overlords :)

Maybe have the spell require multiple nodes from a certain magic type, dependent on map size (so its not completly peacefull as you require many nodes.)

When you start the ritual all other nations get a note of what you are up to: So they have a certain number of turns (maybe 20) to stop you (either by taking the holy city, cutting off your mana supply or killing one of your mages...)

I really like the spell-sphere part of the FFH spell system. Lots of choices, yeah :) !
But the system how often you can cast a spell would be (in my humble opinion) much more intuitive if you'd attach a mana value to each unit and a mana cost to each spell. I did this for my modpack (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=167432) and I'm quite happy how well it works. It also allows for some interesting new promotions that either raise a unit's mana or it's mana regeneration.
As I said: I think it allows a better fine tuning about the frequency of spell casting and is more intuitive.


More intuitive than simply be allowed to cast one spell every turn? I do not think so. ;)

@Frozen Vomit: I may point you to the "Design: New Features" Thread. There we discussed Victory conditions.

More intuitive than simply be allowed to cast one spell every turn? I do not think so. ;)


Well, when I casted "enchant weapon" I couldn't cast it again the next turn. But the reason for this could be that now every unit already had the promotion. I don't know... :crazyeye:

Ideas for new sphere's

Blood Sphere

Blood Curse: Caster loses 10% health, Target's health Degenerates

Blood Summon: Caster loses 20% health, summons Blood Demon.

Blood Heal: Caster loses 20% health, Target healed.

Cosmic Sphere

Star Reading: +2 Visibility

Constellation: +30% Strength

Shine: Target loses all movement points

Lunar Sphere

Full moon: Turns target into werewolf

Strong Moon: Turns Werewolf into next stage (blooded)

Moonlight: Turns unit invisible for that turn

Any comments?

As it is, there's already talk of dropping spheres. So I don't think there's much point to your suggestion for adding them.

Well, when I casted "enchant weapon" I couldn't cast it again the next turn. But the reason for this could be that now every unit already had the promotion. I don't know... :crazyeye:

Yepp exacty. You are only allowed to cast spells that actually have an effect. If all your units have enchanted weapons (all melee units it is) why cast it again ;).

@Civmansam: Wa already have trouble filling those 21 Speres with spells that are really unique, codable and possible for the AI to understand at some point. So actually there is not much need for new spheres at the moment. Actually we have 15 Speres in and not all of those are filled with all the spells required. (approx 7 per Sphere).

At your specific poposals:
Lunar Sphere. The mechanism for Werewolfes is already in through Duin. Why allow similar things by magic? This will only make Duin less interesting.
Blood Sphere: All those effects are covered by other spheres and making the AI understand the price for each spell will add a lot of (unneded) complexity.
Cosmic Sphere: all these spells are either in or fit better to other spheres.

The Visibility gain by an spell actually is a new idea as far as i remember. As is the idear to turn a unit invisible by Magic (could be used in the Shadow Sphere for example). So we would be most gratefull on proposals that contain new mechanics. The Sphere and spellname is of minor interest for the time beeing. So if you have good ideas for what a spell could do keep them coming. That what we actually need. Make sure through that there are no similar spells already planned. (Meaning read the entire thread first ;) )

The Visibility gain by an spell actually is a new idea as far as i remember.

Isn't that what Levitate is planned to do?
From the first page:
Force Sphere

Sorcery 1. Levitate- Allows the caster a brief glimpse of everything in a 3 tile radius.

A generall idea for conjugers and/or arch-mages: Maybe each of them can summon a familiar unit once in his lifetime. It would get bonuses according to the promotions of the caster and stay till it's killed. To make it special it could be the only summon unit that is allowed to gain levels through combat and even be able to cast level I spells.

I think a familiar would be a cool idea, especially if it could learn minor spells itself. Familiars would probably not be too different from warrior-adepts, but I love the flavor of that idea. (Hell, I even give my high-level archmages and summoners unique names. Personal magical pets for each of them would be even more fun. *g*)

Yepp exacty. You are only allowed to cast spells that actually have an effect. If all your units have enchanted weapons (all melee units it is) why cast it again ;).


Agreed ;) . So mana costs for spells are perhaps a bit more complicate but they they still allow more finetuning especially for powerful spells - as you can't cast them every turn.

Law, Sor II: Iron Rule-target unit gains the enforcer promotion (reduces maintnance in cities. Gives +1 unhappiness as well).

Water, Div I: Stormy seas-all ships in target non-coastal and non-control water space have a 25% chance of dying.

Life, Sum I: Unicorn-a medium strength mounted unit that terraforms the terrain it is on if it wins a battle.

Law, Sor II: Iron Rule-target unit gains the enforcer promotion (reduces maintnance in cities. Gives +1 unhappiness as well).

I love this idea but this is currently the only Bannor specifc mechanic. And the Bannor arent getting any love in the poll.

I think this spell should probably be as you recommended, but we need a to flavor the bannor up. You want to take a shot at them?

Water, Div I: Stormy seas-all ships in target non-coastal and non-control water space have a 25% chance of dying.

I think this is a great idea for a permanent terrain. The spell permanetly changes the tile to the "stormy" version that minorly damages ships of non-overlords civs that pass through it. That way overlords civs can use it to guard their seas much as the fellowship uses ancient forests.

The spell would remain as the method they origionally create the tiles. What do you think?

Life, Sum I: Unicorn-a medium strength mounted unit that terraforms the terrain it is on if it wins a battle.

No unicorns.

No unicorns.

Not even when they are completly insane? Using their horns to open up the bodies of fallen enemies to feast on the wobbly bits inside? ;)

Does anyone know Earthdawn? I've only the German version of the Creature Book, but there Unicorns are Carnivores. A free translation of the description is like:
Horns covered with blook. Dirty fur. Feared by everyone. Unlike other animals they do not kill for food but they kill as they enjoy it. They hunt in small gruops and are able to bring down animals much largen then themselves. Their intellicence even alloes them to hunt down !Dragons!. The most fearsome thing through is that when they hat tasted the flesh of humans once nothin else is good enough for them. So they hide at roads and trick humans away to feed on them. Sometimes hordes of them eradicate entire villages in the night.

I love this idea but this is currently the only Bannor specifc mechanic. And the Bannor arent getting any love in the poll.

1. I think this spell should probably be as you recommended, but we need a to flavor the bannor up. You want to take a shot at them?

2. I think this is a great idea for a permanent terrain. The spell permanetly changes the tile to the "stormy" version that minorly damages ships of non-overlords civs that pass through it. That way overlords civs can use it to guard their seas much as the fellowship uses ancient forests.

The spell would remain as the method they origionally create the tiles. What do you think?

3. No unicorns.

1. Sure. i've been working on the balseraphs, but they don't really need it.

2. I think that this spell should be the only way to create it.


3. Okay.
Life Sum I: Pegasus-
A weak mounted type with -50% against archers. Can fly recon and interception and transport infantry and bombing missions.

Life Sum I: Pegasus-
A weak mounted type with -50% against archers. Can fly recon and interception and transport infantry and bombing missions.

If unicorns are too cute for a dark fantasy mod, what are pegasi? :)

Spell idea:
Name:Scry
possible effects: Click a spot on the map, see 3x3 around that spot.
Click on a city, get a view in that city
Reveal the map for a turn

Just a small idea for summonig 1 or 2 - mind (don't know if this is possible at the moment):

- Summons 1 strenght pixies (or whatever seems in flavour) that cannont move like guardian vines, so they stay until destroyed. If a city is working the pixies tile it gets a bonus culture point per round...

Could be usefull to generate culture for new cities without the need for certain buildings. Those pixies should be limited to one per caster of course...

Another idea for a spell in the life, order mind section:

- teaching, sholarship? The caster transfers one of his xp points to target unit in the stack - so if you do not want to level the caster any more you can give his random xp gains to other units... (maybe the caster cannot go under level caps he already took for promotions to prevent exploits.)

Wind needs to be filled.
Wind Walk- makes caster bit like helicopter- +2 movement, ignores terrain movement cost. NOT LIKE HASTE as it doesn't affect stack.
Definitely need lv.2 wind summon, but I don't know anything right now, to be unique.

I have something, very silly and maybe not possible/useful, but if it is not unique I don't know what is.
Turn targeted enemy unit in sheep. (How is that spell called? Every RPG game has it. Morph?)
Sheep resource stays on terrain for 2-3 turns, providing food for city and health for civilization. After 2-3 turns it dissapears permanently, along with unit.
OR after 2-3 turns resource dissapears and unit revives.
OR just turn unit in combat 0 unit which uses sheep graphic. It needs to be guarded, because it is combat 0, but if you protect it and escort back to your town, or after 2 turns, it changes back to normal unit. I think latest way is best one, as you won't permanently loose unit to spell.

Love the new spell system, and thinking about it today had some ideas, which may or may not be new to you.
I had an idea that might work well for a mid to high level mind, spirit, or life spell.
Compassion-gives unit the mercy promotion.
Mercy promotion--gives unit a 100% withdrawal rate when attacking living enemies. The unit would withdraw just before finishing the enemy, if possible, leaving it alive with ~10% HP. Would have no effect when defending other than that it would have a 50% to be removed after surviving an attack. Perhaps some strong good units could have this automatically as a balance.

Also some possible Air/misc spells (since I noticed none are in yet)
Guarding Winds-Unit(s)ignores (enemy) first strikes until the after the next battle.
Suffocate-Damages all living units in the tile by a medium level. (counterpart to banish)
Tornado-Prevents units from entering or working square for 1 turn. If cast in desert, destroys any improvements inc. roads. If cast on an ocean squarehas 50% chance of surviving to next turn and moving to random tile, possibly destroying any ships there.

Also, have you considered having spells/summons that require more than one unit to cast? It's quite in the spirit of fantasy to have a little council of mages required to cast strong spells, maybe summoning a titan/esper whatever or global effects such as +1 food in all cities for 1 turn. If a summon, make it a world unit perhaps.

- Another idea for an emty summoning slot:

Summon flying eyeball. Works just like you would imagine -> a fast recon unit that can cross enemy boarders

@Frozen Vomit: Please read the forum before posting ;)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3904423&postcount=118

@Frozen Vomit: Please read the forum before posting ;)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3904423&postcount=118

I seem to be reading them way to often anyway - but fail to get that most of the things that come to my mind are already planned or suggested by others :mischief:

But its good you reminded me of this... i'll make an flyiing Eye this evening when i finished the next dragon flavour :)

I seem to be reading them way to often anyway - but fail to get that most of the things that come to my mind are already planned or suggested by others :mischief:

Well, we do have a 3 month head start and you've only had access for 4 days. Its going to be hard to come up with new ideas in the short term.

I dont know if this has been mentioned or not.

But what about a spell called entanglement?

When cast on an enemy it prevents it from moving.

Or how about slow? When you cast slow on a fast moving unit it can only move one space.

Or are these spells already present?

And maybe you could have a very poweful but hard to get spell called

"buff".

Buff would increase the target units strength by 1.5 x base stregnth.

And i would recomend it being really hard to get. It seems very powerful.

One last suggestion for now!

I know theres a haste spell but i dont know if theres this spell also.
(Im not far enough in the game to get spells!)

I dont know if haste lets the unit go faster or attack multiple times per turn.

But if one of those effects are missing you could make another spell with the other effect.

And also you could have a spell called "Haste II".

Haste II would let the unit go twice as fast and attack more then once per turn.

Xanikk--If you scroll down the first post and second posts you will see all of the spells we have so far, and their effects. These are very good ideas, but we have them already.

Has any thought been put into a spell that drains xp from enemies targeted. This would be an evil way to cripple an enemy hero or spellcaster from leveling up for a while.
An example name would be 'Age' or 'Forgetfulness'

Has any thought been put into a spell that drains xp from enemies targeted. This would be an evil way to cripple an enemy hero or spellcaster from leveling up for a while.
An example name would be 'Age' or 'Forgetfulness'

Its already in, called "Enervation" as a targeted spell and also applied to anyone who fights a Wraith.

Ah, there is me never getting to wraiths. Usually the whole world is bowing before my undead armies before then.

I took a look at the spell spheres and noted you didn't have anything planned for dimensional summoning and I had an idea.

Summon Hellgate
Effect: This spell, when used, creates a gate to Hell for one turn or when the unit is on the Hellmap it will create a gateway back to the normal world. Where the gateway exits is random and the gate vanishes at the end of the opponents turn.
And when you step through you are deposited on a square adjacent to the gateway. That way the gate isn't blocked.

Use: It can be used both offensively and defensively. For example, it can be used to make a quick escape with a threatened army but you can be followed. But the gateway works both ways, so it also allows creatures from the Hellmap entry into the normal world.

you should make a level two conjurer spell where he can create a gargoyle while in a city. The city will then have a gargoyle protector which will only spawn when an enemy is within two spaces of the city and then continue to rest once the enemy has fled or been vanquished.

you should make a level two conjurer spell where he can create a gargoyle while in a city. The city will then have a gargoyle protector which will only spawn when an enemy is within two spaces of the city and then continue to rest once the enemy has fled or been vanquished.

This is similar to the Malakim's Citadel of Light that will spawn a fireball if an enemy appears within 2 tiles.

A gargoyle may be added, but it will probably be a buildable defensive unit (maybe with a bonus against "evil spirits") and not a spell.

I know it's far too early for this suggestion, but how about a pheonix spell which requires Death 3, Life 3 and Fire 1, 2 or 3? (And sorcery 3, of course).

If you have lost a hero in battle over the game, you can sacrifice the unit and have it re-born as a fallen hero of your choice (if you've lost more than one over the course of the game).

Sun Sphere

Skin Cancer - Effectively dooms the target unit, giving it a set amount of turns left to live in (high chance of resist)
Sun Tap - Caster drains the sun's energy to increase his own power; caster gains a small amount of xp and the tile is transformed to snow/tundra

I know you're probably joking, but a skin cancer spell could potentially upset some people... would you be able to cure it as well? :)

Nah, only white people die from skin cancer so it won't offend the PC establishment (did he just do it again? :mischief: ).

Seriously though, I think the basic idea is good enough, but difficult to balance ... the factors to be taken in consideration are 1) spell level, 2) duration and 3) chance of resistance. For instance, having it autoresisted by hero units, world units and/or national units could be a way to balance it. Oh, and the spell can be renamed "Sunburn" or "Solar Flare", since "Skin Cancer" or "Overexposed" is just the promotion the target unit gets.

Are you guys working on combo spells like spells that take chaos 1 and mind 1

Instead of skin cancer have it be Sun Stroke and causes Illness that way

Are you guys working on combo spells like spells that take chaos 1 and mind 1

Nothing right now. Its a possibility for the future and we have talked about it, but right now we are more concerned with filling the single spell slots with the best possible working spells.

Sun Sphere

Skin Cancer - Effectively dooms the target unit, giving it a set amount of turns left to live in (high chance of resist)


Not really funny at all...

Life sum II: Centaur-a cavalry type unit with a bonus against archers and -25% against cities.

Thing that bugs me about the Mana system:

If I build an Adept, then I expand and find and build different mana nodes, the Adept/Mage/Conjuror whatever doesn't get that new mana node spell sphere promotion. If a Civ gets access to a mana node, I think every caster already built should get the upgrade.

As it is, Mana does not seem important at all, which doesn't seem right. The Adepts in my game that usually become the Archmages/Summoners end up never taking the advantage any Mana nodes whatsoever because I usually build them early in the game. Shouldn't Mana nodes be similar to Oil? Nations should go to war over them for the power and want to prevent their neighbors from having access.

Also, maybe add a few more ways a caster can gain XP. How about, if a caster fortifies inside a Ancient Temple, he gains xp a bit faster. Or a Wizard Tower building and once you build 7 or so, you can build a Magic academy national wonder that increase caster's xp gain rate.

If you have Wonders that give mana, and a healthy amount (>3) nodes of different spheres then mana is very important. Instead of wasting xp on those spheres you can learn other stuff. I agree that the AI doesn't value mana well yet, but it is Beta.

I'm on the fence about your first point. Maybe the magic user should be allowed to go to a city with a Library (or some building) and meditate for x number of turns and learn the new sphere that way without using xp?

@Sisonpyh: Obviosly your Post seems a bit self contradicting! If you think that Mana Nodes are not worth building Adepts and Mages should actually get XP slower. That a Mana nod (=starting spell) will give you an distinct advantage.

That Nodes you built later do not give additional Spell spheres is intended. Otherwise ther would be several Exploits available for players. For example Built several Adepts. Then built a node. Pillage that node built another node on the same place and so forth. This way all your adepts get each sphere at level one.
I would prefer that nodes work in a different way. Eitehr you get freee XP when your Spellcasters learn Spheres where you have a node. Or you get XP slower for Adepts if you have not as much Manas available as Spell Spheres.

So for example if your Adept has Fire I and you have no Fire Node the XP gain for that Adpet is halved, If he has Water I and Fire I and non of thes nodes his XP gain is even lower (maybe 1/4). If you have an Mage with Fire II you wuld need two Fire Manas to get the full XP. This system would make Nodes quite Valuable, but its downside is that it adds a lot of additional Computing time each turn. Others have to decide if that is worth it - and again of cours the AI - how to teach it to learn the right Spells/Built the right nodes is again a difficult task.

I think the earlier Adepts have a huge advantage in leveling up compared to the later ones due to the nature of the barbarian attackers. Earlier Adepts can easily be used in melee capacity and thus gain xp's much faster, so it's a nice balance as you expand and gain more nodes you're casters start stronger. But the early ones will usually outpace them as they have become far more powerful from they're early physical early days. The only limiting factor is they don't have the potential to be as powerful as your later casters because they didn't get as many free promotions.

On a side note, I like using skeletons early but I also would never want to build a death node because of it's diplomatic modifier, using Death Magic as a promotion without having the node doesn't confer the penalty. I personally think that if you use Death, Chaos or Entropy magic you should suffer the consequences wether or not you actually have a node of that type built. As it stands you could build a very evil force of mages but circumvent the penalties by paying xp for the promotions.

I think the earlier Adepts have a huge advantage in leveling up compared to the later ones due to the nature of the barbarian attackers. Earlier Adepts can easily be used in melee capacity and thus gain xp's much faster, so it's a nice balance as you expand and gain more nodes you're casters start stronger. But the early ones will usually outpace them as they have become far more powerful from they're early physical early days. The only limiting factor is they don't have the potential to be as powerful as your later casters because they didn't get as many free promotions.

Your right, nodes become more important in closer games where you are actually losing archmages. If you are playign a less challenging game and you actually keep your archmage for the duration then starting builds become less important.

I also think that we need a bigger bonus for having multiple nodes of the same type which could help with this.

On a side note, I like using skeletons early but I also would never want to build a death node because of it's diplomatic modifier, using Death Magic as a promotion without having the node doesn't confer the penalty. I personally think that if you use Death, Chaos or Entropy magic you should suffer the consequences wether or not you actually have a node of that type built. As it stands you could build a very evil force of mages but circumvent the penalties by paying xp for the promotions.

When we make multiple nodes worth more this will be harder to do (you will be denying yourself access to the death, entroy and chaos wonders) but I like the fact that even if you are the good guys you can have some rogue mage working for you that has learned death magic.

We may want to consider some balance here, so for example it becomes impossible to buy death 3 if you dont own a death node. But thats really hard from an ai prespective and forces players to have to get nodes to advance. Which was never my intent. Nodes should be a nice boost if you have them but not death if you dont (unlike oil).

perhaps you should reconsider spells sphere desing for things like summoning meteors, becoming liches, tsunamies ect, a new system where the final promotion for each sphere transforms the caster into a type of "avatar", such that the final fire promotion allows you to summon meteors.

these new elementals would become new units unable to become avatars of other types and would loose proficiencies in opposite spheres(fire avatars would loose water and nature spere proficiencys ect) but would allow access to the single best spell in the sphere(such as summon meteors)

perhaps you should reconsider spells sphere desing for things like summoning meteors, becoming liches, tsunamies ect, a new system where the final promotion for each sphere transforms the caster into a type of "avatar", such that the final fire promotion allows you to summon meteors.

these new elementals would become new units unable to become avatars of other types and would loose proficiencies in opposite spheres(fire avatars would loose water and nature spere proficiencys ect) but would allow access to the single best spell in the sphere(such as summon meteors)

This would add complexity without adding fun. Also, I believe the consensus is that the fewer restrictions the mod puts on the player, the better. If he wants to put all his eggs in one basket by making an archmage with level 3 in every sphere, why shouldn't he be able to?

Besides, if he does that, he's actually at a disadvantage, because the mage can still only cast one spell per turn, and an opposing player can take out a significant investment just by killing one unit.

This would add complexity without adding fun. Also, I believe the consensus is that the fewer restrictions the mod puts on the player, the better. If he wants to put all his eggs in one basket by making an archmage with level 3 in every sphere, why shouldn't he be able to?

Besides, if he does that, he's actually at a disadvantage, because the mage can still only cast one spell per turn, and an opposing player can take out a significant investment just by killing one unit.

If they have Lichdom and/or Spellstaff, they can cast more than once per turn. A combo of Enchant/Death/Fire III would be devasting.

If they have Lichdom and/or Spellstaff, they can cast more than once per turn. A combo of Enchant/Death/Fire III would be devasting.

Yeah I think the most meteors ever dropped in a turn was 12 from a Lich with a spellstaff. Truely devastating. An Eater of Dreams could do more, but only defensivly.

perhaps if that is too much, then the spellcasters could have a 4th promotion in the line that makes them into a truly powerful fighting unit, one actually capable of killing to raise "it's" xp for levels(maybe alternate effects like immortal for ie body)?

or maybe just some sort of avatar type for water air body and fire that each have access to the elemental spells of their type?

(give me elemental avatars or i will hunt you down with my water walking fire 3 lich!
also, i was thinking of maybe, a meta magic spell called synergy that would allow two casters to combine their magic promotions in a single field (letting an archmage with metamagic 2 combine with a fire 3 summoner to cast meteor strike)?

just a quick suggestion: howabout making the rank 1 fire spell scorch also turn ice into tundra?

i mean the heat definitely melts some of the ice, if it can turn plains into desert

but definitelz not tundra into plains... thats reserved for the vitalize land spell...

A couple thoughts on air spells:

Tornado and Thunderstorm should also destroy improvements in the tiles they affect.

For a Sorcery I air spell, I offer the following suggestions:

1. North Wind: Changes plains and grasslands into tundra
2. Fair Winds: When cast on a stack of ships, gives it +1 move for x turns.
3. Becalm: When cast on a stack of ships, prevents them from moving for x turns.

A suggestion for an Air Divine spell for the Overlords:

1. Whispering Winds: Target is driven mad by voices only it can hear, becomes a barb. Doesn't affect golems, demons, or undead.
2. Poisonous Fog: Caster is surrounded by a bank of fog that weakens enemies that enter it

Summoner creatures are awesome. how about giving Wraiths disease spreading? It'd diferentiate them a bit more, and hits the theme. Knock the str down a point to compensate if need be.

Also, since inquisitors are much harder to come by now, I think inquisition ability should not sacrifice them. But instead it could take 3 or so turns to take effect or cause more unhappiness to mitigate a free casting.

Summoner creatures are awesome. how about giving Wraiths disease spreading? It'd diferentiate them a bit more, and hits the theme. Knock the str down a point to compensate if need be.

We have enough disease causing stuff already, I hate to add anymore.

Also, since inquisitors are much harder to come by now, I think inquisition ability should not sacrifice them. But instead it could take 3 or so turns to take effect or cause more unhappiness to mitigate a free casting.

Inquistion shouldnt kill the caster, did it kill one for you?

Well, no, actually, I just assumed it did. I didn't try it too hard, but I think the option was grayed out, is it in now?

Aquisition Spell Sphere: Theft magic everything from buildings, units resources, maybe even wonders..........hypothetically very dangerous sphere maybee bonuses for theft of somekind.......I dunno.......just come to me...But it could cause war and bad relations with other civs for sure........man will the other players hate this or thank me.........well here it goes.

Hello,

I cant remember if this is where i saw the discussion about what mana nodes should do when they get destroyed, and i couldent find a mana nodes thread, so ill just post in here (its still relative... i hope...)

If a mana node is destroyed, either by pillaging, or to change what mana type the player is getting, the node temoparily disapears, and in its place a "rift" resource appears.
This rift is a one way passage from hell, that allows barbarian deamons into the realworld, but nothing from the real world can go to hell.
the only way a player can close a rift is by sacrificing a deamon summoner / conjourer on top to repair the rift, bringing back the mana resource to use again.

This idea, i think, will stop players from 'cheating' and mana swapping to gain different free spell spheres for their new adepts, as there is a big cost for doing so. However, it could also be good for free EXP, just sit your unit next to it and wait for the deamons to come...

Hello,

I cant remember if this is where i saw the discussion about what mana nodes should do when they get destroyed, and i couldent find a mana nodes thread, so ill just post in here (its still relative... i hope...)

If a mana node is destroyed, either by pillaging, or to change what mana type the player is getting, the node temoparily disapears, and in its place a "rift" resource appears.
This rift is a one way passage from hell, that allows barbarian deamons into the realworld, but nothing from the real world can go to hell.
the only way a player can close a rift is by sacrificing a deamon summoner / conjourer on top to repair the rift, bringing back the mana resource to use again.

This idea, i think, will stop players from 'cheating' and mana swapping to gain different free spell spheres for their new adepts, as there is a big cost for doing so. However, it could also be good for free EXP, just sit your unit next to it and wait for the deamons to come...

I half like that, but for two things:
1-Some raider jerk is gonna sneak next to my cities and pillage the mana, then I'm gonna have demons attacking them.
2-You can't really blame players for wanting to swap around mana, at least at this point, when there are mid-late game wonders that give free mana which might duplicate what they already have, i.e, be a second death or fourth fire.

Sphere Sun
Divine one:Perfect Sunlight/the plants grown in square double production until dispelled by a Metamagic spell of some kind.....otherwise permanent.
Divine two: Fair Weather:Same as Perfect Sunlight except effects chosen square and surrounding squares and has a chance to produce a new plant resource 5% to 20%chance

Dimensional Shuffle (dimension 3, sorcery):
Randomly shuffles the promotions and attributes in the targeted stack (Exception for spellcasters). Can only be cast on enemy stacks.

Planal Rift (dimension 3, Divine):
Summons a number of barbarian demons, the power of which depend (if feasible) on the other known spells of the caster. For example, Dimension + Death will sommon a number of death 3 summons.
On casting this spell, the unit will either be consumed (die) or lose the ability to cast this spell again (lose the promotion).

Schism (dimension 3, Summoning):
You select two units in a stack. You will get two units back. These units will split their total power, total promotions and total experience between them. If you were to use a dwarven soldier and an elven archer for example, you could be given a unit which is both elf and dwarf. But you will be given back a melee unit and an archer unit.

Edit: Silly me, divine don't have access to a great deal of spells do they?

Divine, Death 2: Curse
The targeted unit (not stack) cannot heal for the rest of the game. Can only curse two units at one time per unit with these promotions? Like death 1 and skeletons?

Divine, Death 2: Curse
The targeted unit (not stack) cannot heal for the rest of the game. Can only curse two units at one time per unit with these promotions? Like death 1 and skeletons?

That could be a pretty intersting mechanic. I was also thinking about having a creature that is big but never heals. Im going to add it as a promotion under consideration.

That could be a pretty intersting mechanic. I was also thinking about having a creature that is big but never heals. Im going to add it as a promotion under consideration.

Hmm...this got me thinking. How about an avatar unit called "Entropy Incarnate", which starts off with ridiculously high strength, but is also born with the inability to heal and a slight health degeneration promotion? It would be able to wreak alot of havoc in its early existence, but gradually it would start to fall victim to its own powers of degeneration, growing weaker and weaker until it died.

And maybe we could also have the "Creation Incarnate" unit, which starts off very weak and slowly grows stronger and stronger, being useless right when you get it, but eventually becoming the most powerful unit in the game.(This would probably be less straightforward to code, though.)

And maybe we could also have the "Creation Incarnate" unit, which starts off very weak and slowly grows stronger and stronger, being useless right when you get it, but eventually becoming the most powerful unit in the game.(This would probably be less straightforward to code, though.)
Not too diff. Just give it an infinite heroic promotion or something.

If Chalid gets the iCombat adjust working it would actually be pretty easy. ;)

I have a complaint [err, make that a suggestion!] about the life sphere--sanctify is a level one spell to clean up fall out. Good, but defile is a level 2 spell, the only way to produce fallout, afaik. Nevermind the fact that I've never seen ai cast defile, sanctify is still going to be useless until someone else gets a mage and then uses one particular spell.
2 possible ways to improve this situation: Have another way to produce fallout. Maybe a UU or otherwise rare unit will leave it behind when it dies, something like a pyre zombie maybe.
Or, combine with the spell effect consecrate, and have the spell both increase culture and remove fallout, and implement a different spell for life as well. Sanctify/Consecrate could work as either level 1 or 2 then, probably 2. Maybe for a level 1 life spell, increase food production on a tile by one as long as the adept/mage/etc. is standing there. Though that gets into nature, it's a blurry line.

Dimensional spell idea thrown in. Dimensional/Sorcery 2--Portal Shield: Next one time this arcane unit is attacked, the attacking unit is warped randomly to one of his cities.

I have a complaint about the life sphere--sanctify is a level one spell to clean up fall out. Good, but defile is a level 2 spell, the only way to produce fallout, afaik. Nevermind the fact that I've never seen ai cast defile, sanctify is still going to be useless until someone else gets a mage and then uses one particular spell.
2 possible ways to improve this situation: Have another way to produce fallout. Maybe a UU or otherwise rare unit will leave it behind when it dies, something like a pyre zombie maybe.
Or, combine with the spell effect consecrate, and have the spell both increase culture and remove fallout, and implement a different spell for life as well. Sanctify/Consecrate could work as either level 1 or 2 then, probably 2. Maybe for a level 1 life spell, increase food production on a tile by one as long as the adept/mage/etc. is standing there. Though that gets into nature, it's a blurry line.

Dimensional spell idea thrown in. Dimensional/Sorcery 2--Portal Shield: Next one time this arcane unit is attacked, the attacking unit is warped randomly to one of his cities.

We usually record all of our complaints in this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171428 ;)

I think you are right that some additional benifit needs to be added to Sanctify. Im thinking of a positive fallout effect that may give penalties to unholy units in the tile.

Let me think about it.

Hey Team,

Idea for water or creation sphere (not sure which)

Source River / Birth River / Flow

~Level 2 divine spell??
~Can only be casy in hills or next to mountain squares
~Caster is imobilized (cannot attack / defend) for x turns, where x is the number of squares to the coast time 3. (so if caster is 6 squares from the coast, the spell would take 18 turns to complete.)
~A River appears in the caster's square, and every tree turns, it grows one more square towards the coastline, in a random direction.
~The river is permanent.

Another idea for creation Sphere:

Raise land
~ raises land in target ajacent square. (ie ocean-coast-plain-hill-mountain)
~the resulting land formation is permanent.
~takes 20 turns or so to cast. caster is imobilized.

Hey Team,

Idea for water or creation sphere (not sure which)

Source River / Birth River / Flow

~Level 2 divine spell??
~Can only be casy in hills or next to mountain squares
~Caster is imobilized (cannot attack / defend) for x turns, where x is the number of squares to the coast time 3. (so if caster is 6 squares from the coast, the spell would take 18 turns to complete.)
~A River appears in the caster's square, and every tree turns, it grows one more square towards the coastline, in a random direction.
~The river is permanent.

Another idea for creation Sphere:

Raise land
~ raises land in target ajacent square. (ie ocean-coast-plain-hill-mountain)
~the resulting land formation is permanent.
~takes 20 turns or so to cast. caster is imobilized.

The river idea is very interesting. Im going to add it to the idea under consideration for spells. To be honest though Im about terraformed out, but I like the idea of being able to grow a river.

I just noticed Hippus Summoner is not unique to Hippus (well, I mean I just noticed the unit exists ^^)... Is this because the Air sphere is not complete yet or is it just an error in coding?

I just noticed Hippus Summoner is not unique to Hippus (well, I mean I just noticed the unit exists ^^)... Is this because the Air sphere is not complete yet or is it just an error in coding?

Error in coding. Hmpf, no wonder no one knew what the rarest summon in the game was. It wasnt in the game!

You didn't like my shuffling idea? Is that because you don't like randomness or because it would be too difficult to impliment? I guess it would be better as a chaos spell but they were taken...

For the nightmare summon, why not transfere it to mind 2? It might be easier to come up with another death summon than two more mind summons. Plus, conjuring a nightmare seems more like a mind summon than a death summon to me.

You didn't like my shuffling idea? Is that because you don't like randomness or because it would be too difficult to impliment? I guess it would be better as a chaos spell but they were taken...

Yeah it destroys strategy. One of the design concepts of FfH is that you should be able to buidl the unit you want over the life of the game. I would hate to be able to easily destroy that build.

For the nightmare summon, why not transfere it to mind 2? It might be easier to come up with another death summon than two more mind summons. Plus, conjuring a nightmare seems more like a mind summon than a death summon to me.

There are no plans for mind summons. You can only summon creatures from dimensions of that spheres magic. Some of the spheres don't have planes. Anything you see a (none) by means there will never be a spell in that slot. There isn't any enchantment, body, mind or spirit summons. There are no death divine spells (Arawn doesn't grant spells).

Fir points, thanks for clearing that up- the spells list looks a lot more complete now that I know what was meant by 'none'/

FOR MOONHUNTER :POST 220 THIS THREAD

It might turn some Ice into ocean methinks. I am waitng until the new spells listed that aren't out yet, are.....before i make any more suggestions.......methinks better see how easy it is to handle first.

Damn....I unquoted somehow.........I....well maybe I just didn't hit the switch.......Always proofread, righght.

Are you going to includ euber spells for each sphere? like Armageddon spells.
if you are i have some ideas:

~Gate Lock(metamagic) this spell prevents the traveling to and from hell untill it is Dispelled, all mages and summoners can no longer summon anything.
~Call of the Wild(nature) wild animals strength doubled and animals can now appearin forests and hills inside of cultural boarders (not Ancient Forests) these animals can attack cities, and all captive animals escape.
~Retern to the Sea?(water) all land tiles ajacent to coast tiles become flooded and are turned into coast tiles. Cities on the coasts are reduced to population one and 50% of buildings are destroyed in them.
~Revenge of the earth?(Earth) all peaks turn into volcanos?(do not create fallout around them, instead when they erupt, surrounding squares become more fertile and get +1 food) all hills turn into peaks. cities on hills are destroyed.
~Fimbulwinter(ice) Desert turns into plain, Plain to Tundra, Tundra to Ice, 25% water tiles to ice, rivers become glaciers?
~Flame's Rebellion?(fire) all fire nodes explode destroying everything withing 2 squares. Desserts spawn sand liona and fire elementals. Any arcane units that know any fire spells turn into barbarians and instantly learn all fire spells.

The armegeddon spells are uber for each sphere. ;)

lol, oops, should have realized that :blush:

but would my ideas be ok for armagedon spells, or do they need to be more chaotic?

lol, oops, should have realized that :blush:

but would my ideas be ok for armagedon spells, or do they need to be more chaotic?

No, the armageddon spells should reflect the release of great quantities of power of their respective sphere. I like your ideas a lot. Im going to copy them into the private "Fire" thread so when we begin to put together the design list for "Fire" we can consider them.

Does Tsunami do anything?

Does Tsunami do anything?

Shouldn't it just be called Tidal Wave? I mean, that's the definition of the word and it is just a word from another language...