Whats your favorite spell sphere and why?

Death because skeletons are super early helper units. Honestly, I still don't understand all of the other spheres yet so I keep it simple and go with death. Just be careful you're evil or the other civs will not be your friends anymore for using death magic.

I really don't have a favourite spell sphere, I'm still experimenting:)

Although for super-handy early spell, I really love "Spring" from the Water Sphere.

I had not time to test all spells but for now i really like to build body and dimensional nodes as the level 1 spells (haste and escape) are usefull to have for any caster. But most of the other first level spells are very useful, too (at least those i tried)

Yeah, I also go for body nodes, having "haste" as a default spell is excellent. One mage in a stack always has it, either I have body mana or not.

Hard to say. Death is one I often pick early, as with it Adepts can be used as decent early military, while at the same time being good investments in the future. Fire is probably the most useful for offense, Meteor Shower is still to be feared. (Especially if you also have a Spellstaff - Meteor x 6 = very dead enemies).

Having a couple of early adepts with death 1, perhaps one with a couple of strength promotions, makes a great early defence force. You can throw the first wave of skeletons at the attackers and instantly summon a new wave as soon as they die. And ttack again with those as well if you like. And they're completely free.

This strategy was extremely important in a hotseat game I've been playing.

Edit: I was a bit miffed when I wasted a promotion on the spell which gives you 'scrub fallout'. Not exactly useful in the early game when you're at war. Guess I should've taken a look at the civlopidia before choosing it.

Early game, I really like having an adept with water running around turning all of the rather useless desert tiles into plains.

Makes some really bad city locations more appealing.

I have to say death as it is only really useful to have on all adepts- extra skeleton is always good. Haste and enchant blade and spring are useful but you don't need them on every adept. You do need death on every.

Problem with death is it damages your relationship with good races, or at least, it is meant to. Meaning that if you are the Luichurp, Malakim, etc, and use Death, Chaos or Entropy magic, you're going to have a hard time making friends.

Problem with death is it damages your relationship with good races, or at least, it is meant to. Meaning that if you are the Luichurp, Malakim, etc, and use Death, Chaos or Entropy magic, you're going to have a hard time making friends.

With enough skeletons, who needs friends? ;)

Problem with death is it damages your relationship with good races, or at least, it is meant to. Meaning that if you are the Luichurp, Malakim, etc, and use Death, Chaos or Entropy magic, you're going to have a hard time making friends.

This doesn't apply so much in multi-player though

Edit: well I guess it does in a way. Your opponents get pretty pissed off when all they're killing are skeletons :D

I haven't voted because I have more than one choice.
First off I should say that not all spheres are complete, and I didn't try them all.

My favourites are death, body and enchantment.
The summon skeleton spell is a bit overpowered IMO. It should be nerfed with a limited duration of 2 turns (+3 for summoners). Actually, all summon spells should have a duration...
Body and Enchantment give very nice boni even at level 1. Haste is a huge help in the early game.

I didn't have time to try Entropy yet, it looks good on the paper. The other spheres don't convince me much, especially those "good" aligned . They should have better stuff. For example the spell against undeads could be extended to demons too.


All in all, I think the spell system is not finished yet and I didn't even try all of it, so I can't say much for now ;)

Still experimenting, but both Fire and Nature look pretty handy.

Death & body for the early game. Haste and skeletons are IMO the most impt assets for the Spellcaster units.

Enchantment for both early and later. Gives boosts to all the units early on, and allows for Spellstaff later when multiple attacks by stronger AM and DS are impt.

Fire for the later game, having all 3 Archmages with Meteor Shower and Demon Summoners with Fire Elementals lets me bombard a tough city with strong defenders.

I haven't voted because I have more than one choice.
First off I should say that not all spheres are complete, and I didn't try them all.

My favourites are death, body and enchantment.
The summon skeleton spell is a bit overpowered IMO. It should be nerfed with a limited duration of 2 turns (+3 for summoners). Actually, all summon spells should have a duration...
Body and Enchantment give very nice boni even at level 1. Haste is a huge help in the early game.

I didn't have time to try Entropy yet, it looks good on the paper. The other spheres don't convince me much, especially those "good" aligned . They should have better stuff. For example the spell against undeads could be extended to demons too.


All in all, I think the spell system is not finished yet and I didn't even try all of it, so I can't say much for now ;)

I will boost the power of destroy undead in the next patch.

Putting a limited duration on skeletons wouldn't help much IMO. Some way of preventing you from summoning a new skeleton straight away because the one you summoned last turn died might be more effective. But then they wouldn't be half as fun :)

Putting a limited duration on skeletons wouldn't help much IMO. Some way of preventing you from summoning a new skeleton straight away because the one you summoned last turn died might be more effective. But then they wouldn't be half as fun :)

I agree. I love the differeing mechanics and will probably always have some creatures that are limited by the amount of casters instead of just duration. I would rather decrease their power, or increase their counter to deal with them if they are to effective. Removing mechanics is usually a last step.

[QUOTE=Kael] Removing mechanic is usually a last step [QUOTE]
One of the reasons why I love this mod!

I used death sphere mostly with evil races. If I used it with good one, I would think about it however...

well, not only unlimited time summoning is something never seen in any fantasy game (especially with extra-planar creatures or undeads), but it's easily exploitable by using skeletons for scouting. Also a summoned creature should stay near the master because it doesn't make much sense that a summoned undead can wander off till the other end of the continent from its master. Also, with unlimited summoning I can spawn skeletons to one side of my empire, then move my mages to the other side and in case there is danger in this other part destroy those skeletons and summon new ones here. It may be fun etc but -since we are speaking of mechanics- it doesn't follow summoning guidelines at all and it's too exploitable. The fact that you can use up to 3 skeletons in one turn with just one mage (with spellstaff) is also something overpowering but at least more "realistic".

Actually, the idea of making a summoned creature bound to a specific unit or area by a distance modifier is kind of interesting.

well the easiest solution is to limit the summon in duration, but if you can make so that a summoned creature (especially a skeleton that has mind 0) can't stay more than 1-2 tiles away from the caster that would be cool too ;)

The problem is
a) It would need an additional variable for each skeleton that tells him who is his owner.
b) Additional checks each turn.
c) Addintional checks on movement
d) Would not be applicable for Krakens (or you would have to put the caster on a ship which is a horror for AI programming)
e) It would need extra consideration for the AI that needs a lot of code for a special case.

All in all skeletons are not so powerfull that them running free is unbalancing. The Piont above imply that introducing a rule that summons have to stay near will need lots of work for a small effect.
For the most Summons you alreadz have the restriction that they are near to the caster as they disappear after the first turn. So they can be only their movement rate away for the caster.

How about: Make all the other spells more powerful so that all the spells are balanced? :D

Or perhaps there should be a small price (to the adept or to the player) for summoning a skeleton? Perhaps make it so that they can't gain experience for one or two turns? And this is cumulative for summoning more skeletons in the turn? And perhaps a reduced chance of gaining experience for when the skeleton is in the field? I guess that doesn't solve a, b and e from Chalid's post though...

Edit: I guess the summoner could get a negative promotion when he summons a skeleton which will disappear in one or two turns. Or perhaps replaced over one or two turns, by other promotions- I get the impression that would be easier to programme.

It could cost him life. In fact, Death magic should perhaps cost the caster strength points, it fits the general feel of death magic.

Adepts production cost will be raised in the next version. Making it less effcient to raise adept armies, and therefor skeleton ones.

That means that Mage upgrade prices will go down, ja? Goody:D

That means that Mage upgrade prices will go down, ja? Goody:D

You know it!

For the most Summons you alreadz have the restriction that they are near to the caster as they disappear after the first turn. So they can be only their movement rate away for the caster.

exactly... why should a summoned skeleton follow a different rule ?

exactly... why should a summoned skeleton follow a different rule ?

Because they are very easy to control. What if when they got far away from the caster they got a -25% uncontrolled negative buff?

well it would be subject to the problems listed by Chalid in post #23
What if Skeleton could last longer than the other summons but not infinitely ?

the chaos sphere is nice to. except when the unit switches to barbarian? that can stall my advance abit. i have tried them all,i agree with most of the comments already posted about them.

I absolutely love terraforming, so Water. It's so fun to turn the Sahara into... well, Kansas, I guess. But it's still cool! More terraforming! Let me turn those tundras into grasslands!

Fire is classic from FfH1 and it is loveable in its own right. Water oh sweet water. Enchantment is tough to beat and is only complimented by Body. Death magic is evil and I absolutely agree with the Good races and give a final resting place for those who use it with extreme prejustice.(when I am playing evil it is my first choice). Chaos hasn't worked to well for me just trouble and a wish for Fire. Mind please....more mind. Nature is so wonderful that I may be being transformed into a tree hugging daisy eating greeny. Spirit is good but needs a littlle more don't go near that guy. Law a Supreme Justice would be in order. Life there is never enough life. Can't decide which is my favorite either to much experimenting to be done.....will get back later though....I promise

Lol that sounds like song lyrics.

Lol that sounds like song lyrics.

Yes,I was influenced by childhood music while writing that from memory only.
Can you guess which song(s)?
A well writen and functioning magic system has that effect on me........I burst into song.........and shouldn't we all.........after the Fall.........(increase in tempo)...........We kill the orcs fast. Like tornades do to Ash. Enchanted arrows light up the glade. As corpses fall, fertilizer is made. Life spells push. Nymphs they rush. To these high ranking elves of this Forest Gold....by the Sages through the Ages..our stories are told.
This one should be easy although much more modern. I'm impressed you noticed the last one. Thanx.

Fire and nature are my favourites... In my previous game with the Kuriotates (order) I had 3 confessors in my main army, and their ring of flames was more efficient than the sphener, baron Duin (?) Halfmorn, Typhoid mary and valin phanuel.... In most cases I killed half of the defenders just by casting one ring of flames with the three confessors. The remaining ones were all injured. (Why did I bring those unnecessary catapults :mischief: )Once I (unfortunately) even killed a high-level eidolon with orthus`s axe. So the axe disappeared :( . At the same time, my druids transformed all the land in my kingdom with nature-spells :)

While I don`t think the death-spells are too strong, I`ve never been fond of the skeletons anyway, I think the ring of flames might be a bit too strong after the previous game. When my sphener ++ only has scouts and lousy, damaged archers left to kill because the confessors have annihilated all the quality-defenders, a campaign is suddenly no challenge...

definitely nature, fire, water

nature: great summon-tiger, useful for culture building, usefull treetops, and terraforming...
fire: again great summon-lion, although is a pity he cant be used for the carnival as well, meteors and firering are great
water: basic quic terraforming without the need for druids

My answer for now is "none of the above".

Why? Right now, magic feels gamey. Not because we can exploit some really efficient spell combo. It's gamey because I don't feel the AI is using magic at all. I have never been the recipient of a spell cast by an AI civ.

The amount of work that has been done with the spell system is impressive. There's a lot of variety between the spell spheres and a lot of possible combo. The cool factor is way up. But if the AI is not using it, I feel it overpowers the human player way too much.

For instance, why create counter death spell if the evil civs are not summoning death creatures? When will I need such counter-spell if I'm playing a good civ? And will the AI ever use it against me if I summon undead units?

Agreed, my experience is limited and biased by only a few games. But until I am the recipient of fireball, meteor swarm, raise skeleton and the like, magic seems to be a human player feature.

The design team has shown us the way they intent to go with the magic system. And it looks really promising. However, I don't think there is a need for balance between the spell sphere when you're the only civ using magic. The next priority, IMO, should be to ensure that the AI civ do use the magic system properly.

First, I agree to what DarthCycle said. Those who are complaining that certain spells are too powerful should check whether that is maybe only the case because the CPU doesn't use them. Nevertheless I think that some basic balancing can already be done when some feature is extremely overpowered or useless.

About skeletons...
It may be fun etc but -since we are speaking of mechanics- it doesn't follow summoning guidelines at all and it's too exploitable.
I don't think that skeletons are too strong. Although I try to pick Death I with most of my Adepts, just because they can't learn too many useful promotions, I never get overly powerful using skeletons. It's nice to summon a lot of them, but by the time you get a large number of adepts, 3 strength and no defensive boni is just not very strong anymore. They can make a difference, but that's how it should be; we don't want the spell to be useless, after all. They have their uses (scouting is one of them; I think scouting with skeletons is a feature, not an exploit), but since they're so weak, it's often more effective to build axemen instead of the adepts you need to support such an army. Additionally, death magic makes other civs hate you.

Please do not change the skeletons' permanency. When I play evil civs I love to have a standing summoned skeleton army, even if only for flavor. :)

I think that another spell is much more overpowering. As much as I hate to say it - because I love those units - the liches' twincast ability is too powerful in combination with meteor swarm. Since you can have three liches, that means 18 meteor swarms per turn...

Additionally, maybe you could make Guardian Vines castable only outside of cities or give them a defense malus for cities. As it is, they're great city defenders (as those don't need to move anyway) and any other potential use like guarding important resource tiles outside is not an efficient option. Mobile units are better for that. Deciding which tile outside should be guarded would make strategic considerations more important than they're now. Oh, and it would certainly add to their nature flavor if they wouldn't always be urban defenders.

I agree with Darthcycle as well, though I can promise the AI does cast fireballs, summon monsters, etc, it doesnt do it as well as I would like. The nature of modding is that first we must create, then we tune. We know we have a lot of AI work to do.

As for skeletons, I did some testing with them over the weekend. The only thing I didn't like about them was the ability to double hit with them (hit with a skeleton from a previous turn, let it die, summon another one and attack with that. To stop that I have made all of the "permanent summons" unable to move or attack the turn they come into play.

Outside of that I don't see any balance issue with the skeletons. I certainly wasnt able to do more than feed my enemies a lot of xp with them.

First, I agree to what DarthCycle said. Those who are complaining that certain spells are too powerful should check whether that is maybe only the case because the CPU doesn't use them. Nevertheless I think that some basic balancing can already be done when some feature is extremely overpowered or useless.

About skeletons...

I don't think that skeletons are too strong. Although I try to pick Death I with most of my Adepts, just because they can't learn too many useful promotions, I never get overly powerful using skeletons. It's nice to summon a lot of them, but by the time you get a large number of adepts, 3 strength and no defensive boni is just not very strong anymore. They can make a difference, but that's how it should be; we don't want the spell to be useless, after all. They have their uses (scouting is one of them; I think scouting with skeletons is a feature, not an exploit), but since they're so weak, it's often more effective to build axemen instead of the adepts you need to support such an army. Additionally, death magic makes other civs hate you.

Please do not change the skeletons' permanency. When I play evil civs I love to have a standing summoned skeleton army, even if only for flavor. :)

I think that another spell is much more overpowering. As much as I hate to say it - because I love those units - the liches' twincast ability is too powerful in combination with meteor swarm. Since you can have three liches, that means 18 meteor swarms per turn...

Yeah, I gave them twincast because I had the ability free (the only unit with it isnt human playable right now) and I needed something for liches. We need to come up with a better lich effect (or maybe getting access to another archmage is enough).

Additionally, maybe you could make Guardian Vines castable only outside of cities or give them a defense malus for cities. As it is, they're great city defenders (as those don't need to move anyway) and any other potential use like guarding important resource tiles outside is not an efficient option. Mobile units are better for that. Deciding which tile outside should be guarded would make strategic considerations more important than they're now. Oh, and it would certainly add to their nature flavor if they wouldn't always be urban defenders.

Good idea, I'll add that.

It is not death we need fear but what comes after death......and you thought they meant the afterlife........foolish mortals,HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA......

On the balance of undead legions:
What about a promotion called 'conjured' which all "perma-summons" have, where they get a chance to turn barbarian if not within two squares of an arcane unit...this can of course be abused by sending wave after wave of conjures at a rival in hopes they will be hostile but also detrimental because then you armies have to cleave through the ones that didn't make it to your enemy...on second thought, that could be fun!

On the balance of undead legions:
What about a promotion called 'conjured' which all "perma-summons" have, where they get a chance to turn barbarian if not within two squares of an arcane unit...this can of course be abused by sending wave after wave of conjures at a rival in hopes they will be hostile but also detrimental because then you armies have to cleave through the ones that didn't make it to your enemy...on second thought, that could be fun!

I`d prefer that they would get a chance of disappearing. If they turn barbarian as you propose, I`d probably find a suitable corner of my empire, keep the barbarians to myself and get lots of cheap xp.

But again, why do anything. Someone argued earlier in the thread that when you get to the level of being able to summon lots ofskeletons, your other units should be so strong that skeletons just are annoying (and cheap xp). I fully agree with this, and don`t see why they should be changed.

I really like the breadth of the magic system that you guys have implemented.

However, I would personally like to see more depth and cross polination.

Firstly, I really wished that mana nodes did more than just give a free first tier spell. Shouldn't a spell's castability be determined by what mana is available?

Second, How about cross polinating some of the different spell types? For example, Fire and Earth might yield a spell for summoning a Lava Elemental. Death and Life might allow access to a Drain Life spell. Personally, its not individual spells that excite me, its killer combos.

Im sure you guys have more ideas running through your heads than time to actually complete though. I salute all your efforts.

I really like the breadth of the magic system that you guys have implemented.

However, I would personally like to see more depth and cross polination.

Firstly, I really wished that mana nodes did more than just give a free first tier spell. Shouldn't a spell's castability be determined by what mana is available?

Second, How about cross polinating some of the different spell types? For example, Fire and Earth might yield a spell for summoning a Lava Elemental. Death and Life might allow access to a Drain Life spell. Personally, its not individual spells that excite me, its killer combos.

Im sure you guys have more ideas running through your heads than time to actually complete though. I salute all your efforts.

Yeah, right now we are just trying to fill the base slots up (and we have 5-6 new spheres left to add) before we look to combo spells. Although I would say there are a lot combos already available just in considering the interaction of different spells effects. Im poretty sure someone has come up with a VERY broken flesh golem that we are going to have to outlaw at some point.


The mana nodes will also be playing a larger role for wonders in the future.

I think there are way too many mana combos possible to try to design spell for even a fraction of them. That'd be fun if there were, like, 4 elements. You just made those combos immediately accessible as seperate spheres in essence.

You were playing with ideas to make multiple mana more useful--is it possible to decrease adept cost by 10 hammers if you have a two of one mana type, and by 20 if you have a triple? That might give a slight incentive, though probably not enough.

I think there are way too many mana combos possible to try to design spell for even a fraction of them. That'd be fun if there were, like, 4 elements. You just made those combos immediately accessible as seperate spheres in essence.

You were playing with ideas to make multiple mana more useful--is it possible to decrease adept cost by 10 hammers if you have a two of one mana type, and by 20 if you have a triple? That might give a slight incentive, though probably not enough.

Yes, we can effect the production costs with bonus's. This is a double effect though. Since the adepts are boosted for the mana you have to also decrease their cost means better units for more cost. Nothing wrong with that if it isn't unbalancing but I would probably tend to either boost power or lower cost, not both.

I voted nature cause i like ljosalfer very much and so on

I would definitely say that fire is the most powerful right now. It gets good spells in all 3 categories. For summoners you get the awesome sand lion and a fire elemental, liches and archmages get meteor swarms, and best of all is the inquisitor using pillar of fire....

Kael i think that pillar of fire is incredibly overpowered right now, but only because the AI never uses it. I conquered a much more advanced AI opponent who had many T4 defenders with only a few crusaders and a couple high priests and inquisitors. The pillars of fire just completely annihlated everything.

I agree with PoF, haven't used it but a couple times, but it is the equivalent of 3 or 4 catapults, iirc. Without the chance to level up the opposition.

Firstly, I really wished that mana nodes did more than just give a free first tier spell. Shouldn't a spell's castability be determined by what mana is available?

I finally got my answer to why my adepts got some extra promotions all of the sudden, and I really hope that u will make the nodes a more critical resource in the future, not being able to cast death spells without death mana for instance.

Oh, which brings me back to the poll... death magic rules... my army of undeads march through the land of the living causing disease and burning cities where ever they find them... Yes, I am Rosier, DESTROYER OF WORLDS! :rockon:

Early on water and death, when first able to build cojurers starting to build many adepts(must have one chaos mana), at start they shold get at least 5 exp and that free chaos 1, after they built giving them 2 combat promotions, upgrading to conjurer and learning 2nd chaos spell(afterwards only combat promotions). This is very powerful sphere, you can summon 7 str units with promotions, who will stay in your hands until are in cultural borders of enemy, and gaining even more promotions. So I prefer chaos in middle game because I really killing off oponents like that without loosing even 1 unit.