Question: I haven't actually dug into the spell system, but I've had a look at Ring of Flames in the xml and python. Can someone explain to me if I'm reading this right?


<Type>SPELL_RING_OF_FLAMES</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_SPELL_RING_OF_FLAMES</Description>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_SPELL_RING_OF_FLAMES_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
<Strategy>NONE</Strategy>
<Help>TXT_KEY_SPELL_RING_OF_FLAMES_HELP</Help>
<PromotionPrereq1>PROMOTION_FIRE2</PromotionPrereq1>
<PromotionPrereq2>PROMOTION_DIVINE</PromotionPrereq2>
<iRangeSelectNum>-1</iRangeSelectNum>
<SpellFlavors>
<SpellFlavor>
<SpellType>SPELLTYPE_DAMAGE</SpellType>
<iSpellType>2</iSpellType>
</SpellFlavor>
<SpellFlavor>
<SpellType>SPELLTYPE_RANGE_FLAT</SpellType>
<iSpellType>1</iSpellType>
</SpellFlavor>
<SpellFlavor>
<SpellType>SPELLTYPE_COLLATERAL</SpellType>
<iSpellType>4</iSpellType>
</SpellFlavor>
</SpellFlavors>


and


def spellRingofFlames(caster):
doCast(caster)
iX = caster.getX()
iY = caster.getY()
iDmg = 30
if caster.getUnitType() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('UNIT_MESHABBER'):
iDmg = iDmg * 2
iPlayer = caster.getOwner()
pPlayer = gc.getPlayer(iPlayer)
eTeam = pPlayer.getTeam()
for iiX in range(iX-1, iX+2, 1):
for iiY in range(iY-1, iY+2, 1):
if not (iiX == iX and iiY == iY):
pPlot = CyMap().plot(iiX,iiY)
for i in range(pPlot.getNumUnits()):
pUnit = pPlot.getUnit(i)
insDmg = (iDmg / 2) + CyGame().getSorenRandNum(iDmg, "Ring of Flames")
cf.FFHDoDamage(pUnit, "Fire", insDmg, caster)
if (pPlot.getFeatureType() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('FEATURE_FOREST') or pPlot.getFeatureType() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('FEATURE_JUNGLE') or pPlot.getFeatureType() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('FEATURE_FOREST_NEW')):
if CyGame().getSorenRandNum(100, "Fire Spread") <= gc.getDefineINT('FIRE_EFFECT_SPREAD_CHANCE'):
pPlot.setImprovementType(gc.getInfoTypeForString(' IMPROVEMENT_SMOKE'))



Does this mean that Ring of Flames does a PERCENTAGE amount of damage to all units around the caster? Between 15 and 45 percent?

In-game I definitely get the message "unit damaged xx% by fire damage", and a quick test shows that ring of flames defeats strong and weak units at slightly different rates.

I'd like to get a quick description of how RoF actually works before we can go about trying to balance it. I think we agree that it is heavily unbalanced right now? A stack of cheap units (say about 10 confessors) can kill ANY size of enemy stack. Hell, if you came with 5000 Arquebus units, they'd be killed just as quickly as a single Arquebus by our trusty 10 confessors. This is clearly broken.

Before you post and give me your strategies for countering RoF, I'm sure there are many, but that's entirely besides the point.

Yeah, you are reading it right. Its 15-45% before its passed into the dodamage function which applies a lot of its own modifiers.

I want to add a few new attributes for damage spells like the collateral damage. The ability to set in a max amount of damage (so some spells cant kill but can injure units down to a certain percentage) and a max amount of targets a spell can effect.

Dont you simply need a CONCT for that which is checked each time damage if taken, and if it goes over that you simply subtract from the damage...

Yeah, you are reading it right. Its 15-45% before its passed into the dodamage function which applies a lot of its own modifiers.

I want to add a few new attributes for damage spells like the collateral damage. The ability to set in a max amount of damage (so some spells cant kill but can injure units down to a certain percentage) and a max amount of targets a spell can effect.

That would be awesome, Kael. As it is, RoF is incredibly powerful. Because I really really LIKE the spell though (especially now that it sets stuff on fire; gotta love collateral damage!) I decided to rebalance it for our own game. I reduced iDmg to 12 after some experimenting and that seems to do the trick for now. Any reasonable amount of Confessors (say less than 10) only damages a stack. Still, your solution would be perfect.

As it stands, the balance problem is quite simply that from a certain number of RoF priests on, they are uncounterable, because the amount of units you bring does not matter at all.

I don't know how much work this would be, but instead of setting a hard max unit cap, do you think it'd be possible to "spread" the damage among the affected units? As in, if you bring more units, they'll soak the damage, and a single RoF will have less effect on any one unit?

Does this mean that Ring of Flames does a PERCENTAGE amount of damage to all units around the caster? Between 15 and 45 percent?
[...]
I'd like to get a quick description of how RoF actually works before we can go about trying to balance it. I think we agree that it is heavily unbalanced right now? A stack of cheap units (say about 10 confessors) can kill ANY size of enemy stack. Hell, if you came with 5000 Arquebus units, they'd be killed just as quickly as a single Arquebus by our trusty 10 confessors. This is clearly broken.

First off, if your reasoning is true (percentage damage) and I think it is, then these units shouldn't be killed. Second, I think balance-wise you should be more worried about Fireballs, since they can strike 4 tiles away while the Rings of Flames only work on adiacent tiles, not to mention they hit your own units, have chances to burn forests all around, cause neutral civs walking around to declare war on you, etc etc...

As it stands, the balance problem is quite simply that from a certain number of RoF priests on, they are uncounterable, because the amount of units you bring does not matter at all.


Uhm, this is questionable to the VERY least.

I want to add a few new attributes for damage spells like the collateral damage. The ability to set in a max amount of damage (so some spells cant kill but can injure units down to a certain percentage) and a max amount of targets a spell can effect.

If you guys manage to get this, may I make a suggestion for a couple of other fire spells? About fireball and meteor shower, perhaps instead of creating units that attack directly to do damage with collateral damage as a side effect, they should be changed to instead only be able to do collateral damage by targeting a location like how pillar of fire targets a location. Remove a fireball and meteor's ability to move (and scout) and when a mage with spell extension casts the spell, give the fireball or meteor spell extension as well instead of mobility (alternatively, make fireballs and meteors only able to defend like the Trojan Horse and give them mobility).

The effects from this change that I foresee is that fire would not really serve as an absolute replacement for siege weapons, there would no longer be a war weariness penalty for exploding fireballs, units do not gain experience by getting hit by fireballs, and the AI would not be afraid to sacrificing fireballs this way.

If you guys manage to get this, may I make a suggestion for a couple of other fire spells? About fireball and meteor shower, perhaps instead of creating units that attack directly to do damage with collateral damage as a side effect, they should be changed to instead only be able to do collateral damage by targeting a location like how pillar of fire targets a location. Remove a fireball and meteor's ability to move (and scout) and when a mage with spell extension casts the spell, give the fireball or meteor spell extension as well instead of mobility (alternatively, make fireballs and meteors only able to defend like the Trojan Horse and give them mobility).

The effects from this change that I foresee is that fire would not really serve as an absolute replacement for siege weapons, there would no longer be a war weariness penalty for exploding fireballs, units do not gain experience by getting hit by fireballs, and the AI would not be afraid to sacrificing fireballs this way.

Fireballs dont increase war weariness or grant XP. The AI can currently use targeted spells (like pillar of flames) so if we made this change they wouldnt be able to use them at all.

Fireballs dont increase war weariness or grant XP. The AI can currently use targeted spells (like pillar of flames) so if we made this change they wouldnt be able to use them at all.

Really? Well as far as I know fireballs count as units so I figured that when they attack they go into a fast forwarded but otherwise regular combat phase like a siege unit (so it counts as a fight on foreign land). I guess that's not true now?

Also I figured for the AI that at some point later on you guys are also going to find a way to make the AI be able to use targeted spells.

Really? Well as far as I know fireballs count as units so I figured that when they attack they go into a fast forwarded but otherwise regular combat phase like a siege unit (so it counts as a fight on foreign land). I guess that's not true now?

Also I figured for the AI that at some point later on you guys are also going to find a way to make the AI be able to use targeted spells.

Yeah, we had to add in some special SDK code to keep summoned units from raising war weariness.

First off, if your reasoning is true (percentage damage) and I think it is, then these units shouldn't be killed. Second, I think balance-wise you should be more worried about Fireballs, since they can strike 4 tiles away

Percentage of the maxhp, not the actual hp.

Fireballs. Yeah. Right.
Let me explain that balance thing again: a certain amount of confessors (around 7 or so) can kill 23 million macemen in one turn. To phrase it like Doctor Cox: You reheheheheheeeeeeeally don't have to think long to detect the problems arising with that.

Uhm, this is questionable to the VERY least.

Feel free to question that the next time you play against someone abusing confessors. And then you burn in righteous flames.

While I'm not questioning the overpoweredness of Ring of Fire - especially when it comes to taking out the AI - who in their right mind would put a stack of 23 million macemen within striking range of a confessor group?

Send a few hundred thousand in to draw rings of fire, then finish off the confessors with the remaining 22+ million. (Cavalry is preferrable for the follow-up strike, but macemen could work as long as you have usable roads.)

The problem is just that even tho 10 confessors are enough to kill the 23 million macemen those won't be the only confessors your enemy has. Because on top of being as deadly as Cthulhu's tentacles they are cheaper than your average high tier combat unit.

But any smart player can avoid them, specially if with units that have 2 or more movement.

An easy way to win:
Get about 6 Confessors , all with ring of flames and +1 movement, one adapt with hast and +1 movement, and one highly promoted defensive units (with +1 movement) and you have a stack of three movement units that should be able to incinerate 1 City a turn, every turn. If you promote all your Confessors with combat one, assassins won't even be able to kill them (If the AI is smart enough to come up that that many assassins that quickly). I think it would make much more sense if ring of flames couldn't kill units, just knock them down to almost nothing. Then you would still need support units and couldn't rely on Confessors alone.

This technique should work all the time, every time against the AI and is would be barely counter able even against another equally skilled human.

I assume it's not possible to make it so that it does percent damage based on current hit points?

But any smart player can avoid them, specially if with units that have 2 or more movement.

Yeah, just that confessors can get that promotion too.

It seems to me this issue would be fixed if a % of the current unit health was used for RoF. It would still be a very powerful initial strike (or three) but quickly lose effectiveness after that. The same mechanic worked great with the static field spell in Diablo 2 :P

But even as RoF is now, it probably wouldn't be such an issue if the cavalry research path was more attractive... Adepts + haste with 2 move confessors takes a fair amount of work to set up and I'd think even the AI can handle throwing base 3 move cavalry at confessors and other spellcasters 'til they're dead.

Simple fix - just make Ring of Flames affect your units as well (Sphere of Flames?). Give the confessors some fire resistance. Each application of the spell damages the enemy stacks as well as your stack with your confessors. The enemy will die before you do because of your fire resistance, but you'll have to wait and heal up your confessors before casting it again.

the AI is quite good at killing stacks of confessors and high priests with rangers, a shame more players are unable to match it heh. as for it being overpowered, its usually wise to compare them to mages or conjurers, and frankly, you can do insane amounts of damage with a stack of 10 of those as well.

rather than a % of remaining health, itd be better as a diminishing % related to the amount of strength, such that itd work the same against perhaps 4 strength units, but half damage against 8 strength units, and 1/3 compared to 12 strength, etc. health% * PriestStrength/TargetStrength

that way itd keep its current nice cleaning up ability (great for taking out large amounts of tier 1 or 2 units that would be time consuming otherwise), but would be less useful against superior forces.

the real fix that is actually needed tho is either a popup that asks you if you want to declare war when it will hurt someone you're at peace with (hate when a scout of an ally slips into range without notice) or that makes it not work when an ally is in range.

also, gaining fire strength points should provide fire resistance (like having orthus axe should be somewhat better at surviving fire damage given that they handle it often) and units that have it naturally like pyre zombies, should be immune. also, fireballs collateral damage is not fire damage, since it can hurt dragons.

Does this mean that Ring of Flames does a PERCENTAGE amount of damage to all units around the caster? Between 15 and 45 percent?
No. All units have 100 HP to start with; for aesthetic reasons, this is scaled to look differently to the user. On the other hand, if you're talking percentage of maximum (not current) HP, you're correct. Also note that the feature I'm calling Base damage (http://civ4wiki.com/wiki/index.php/FfH_Magic_%28Feature%29#Damage) (which this uses) can alter the damage by up to +35, in the correct circumstances, as well as modifying the final number downwards on a percentage basis.
Finally, the range of damage for Ring of Flames (http://civ4wiki.com/wiki/index.php/FfH_Fire_%28Magic_Sphere%29) (ignoring Meshabber) is 15-44)


In-game I definitely get the message "unit damaged xx% by fire damage", and a quick test shows that ring of flames defeats strong and weak units at slightly different rates.

Yep. Look at Base damage (http://civ4wiki.com/wiki/index.php/FfH_Magic_%28Feature%29#Damage). Level and defensive strength matter for the defender (as well as the more obvious Fire Resistance).

I'd like to get a quick description of how RoF actually works before we can go about trying to balance it. I think we agree that it is heavily unbalanced right now? A stack of cheap units (say about 10 confessors) can kill ANY size of enemy stack. Hell, if you came with 5000 Arquebus units, they'd be killed just as quickly as a single Arquebus by our trusty 10 confessors. This is clearly broken.

This is when you look for Fire Immune units.

Before you post and give me your strategies for countering RoF, I'm sure there are many, but that's entirely besides the point.
Personally, I'd just add a damage, limit, like is done with Siege Weapons.

This is when you look for Fire Immune units.

I guess the fire resistance promotion is a viable defense against confessors.
That is if you somehow find a way to build units with the 6 free levels it needs to get the promotion.

I guess the fire resistance promotion is a viable defense against confessors.
That is if you somehow find a way to build units with the 6 free levels it needs to get the promotion.

Or you could choose a leader with the magic resistant trait and just get one more level.

Or you could choose a leader with the magic resistant trait and just get one more level.

Now that's another very good suggestion! Hey guys, let's just deal with a balancing problem of a spell by only taking leaders with a certain trait.
Wohoo.

Seriously, I don't know if you people have some weird kind of humor and all those answers are meant as joke, or if you somehow pledged to some strange religion which has a credo like "only use sense if you cannot avoid it".
I guess if your house burns you can solve that problem by sleeping on the streets from now on, but I'd rather call the fire department.

Now that's another very good suggestion! Hey guys, let's just deal with a balancing problem of a spell by only taking leaders with a certain trait.
Wohoo.

Seriously, I don't know if you people have some weird kind of humor and all those answers are meant as joke, or if you somehow pledged to some strange religion which has a credo like "only use sense if you cannot avoid it".
I guess if your house burns you can solve that problem by sleeping on the streets from now on, but I'd rather call the fire department.

Quick guide to replying:

1. Read previous post.
2. Think.
3. Type out reply.
4. Read your reply, taking extra care to check if it makes you look like a complete and utter moron.
5. Post.


You apparently forgot steps 1, 2 and 4. Please try to remember those in the future!

Seriously, I don't know if you people have some weird kind of humor and all those answers are meant as joke, or if you somehow pledged to some strange religion which has a credo like "only use sense if you cannot avoid it".
I guess if your house burns you can solve that problem by sleeping on the streets from now on, but I'd rather call the fire department.

We're bored and this is game forum. Some non-sensible answers will come up, all right? Yeah now I see that my answer did not really follow into the grand scheme of things.

Because you want something that makes a bit more sense: When ring of fire gets dealt with, ring of fire should still be devastating. Not everyone though should have a perfect defense against this, nor should it become entirely negligible at some point, otherwise something else would be thrown entirely off balance (in my post I made reference to the magic resistant trait which already has enough going against it). I have no problem with ring of fire being tough, just don't have it be able to kill everyone at once.

For now keep what I typed in red in mind.

Perhaps limit the number of targets to (channeling)+unit level/2 or unit level/3. This formula should probably be used for all the collateral spells.

It makes some sense also in the case of melee (non-spell) units that cause collateral damage (siege units would naturally get a bonus, I'd suggest 6+unit level/2). The collateral-specific promos would increase the base number as well.

Quick guide to replying:
Rest assured that my post was perfectly well crafted with a lot of thought behind it. I simply find it impolite to spam a delicate topic like this with posts, which clearly violate your guide to replying and thus I have no problem with shooting out some sarcastic comments, which only serve as means to show people that they might invest a thought or two more when posting stuff.
Keep in mind that the creator of this thread explicitly stated that the topic should be about the mechanics and how to balance them, not what random_player_X thinks could be done against confessors.

Fireballs. Yeah. Right.
Let me explain that balance thing again: a certain amount of confessors (around 7 or so) can kill 23 million macemen in one turn. To phrase it like Doctor Cox: You reheheheheheeeeeeeally don't have to think long to detect the problems arising with that.

Sorry for the brutality, but this is total BS. First off, there are 24 millions ways to make so that 23 millions macemen attack and kill 7 confessors before they have a chance to cast the ring of flames. Second, like I said Fireballs will own Ring of Flames any day, since 5 Mages can cast Fireballs from 4 tiles away the 7 confessors, and be protected by 2 Melee units that will kill the confessors in case they dare to approach. Third, 23 millions macemen can have Protection from Fire. Fourth, you really have to think at least at one counter before saying ring of flames is totally uber. I for one think Pillar of Flames is incredibly more powerful, even though I seemed to notice that with the last versions RoF's power increased.


Feel free to question that the next time you play against someone abusing confessors. And then you burn in righteous flames.

The bottom line is, confessors are DEFINITELY not the only ones who can cast RoF.......... so much that pretty much anyone can abuse RoF.

onedreamer, you absolutely misunderstood the mathematical problem behind this, but before this gets any more uncivil (and I apologize for inviting such heated discussion), I propose a very simple way of solving this: you play a game against Offenbarungsjoe on FFH021c; you can take Amurites and beeline for your mages, and Offenbarungsjoe will probably want to do Elohim and go straight for order. I really don't think you can appreciate the difference between these two types of magic until you've felt it expertly used against you.

I mean, I could go on arguing the mathematics behind this and show you again and again how there is simply no way you can counter more than 10 units with RoF with any amount of units you could build for the same amount of hammers, but logical argumentation becomes difficult when tempers run hot as they do here.

So what do you say to that little challenge? It will simply be about demonstrating to you how imbalanced rof is right now. You can PM me or Offenbarungsjoe directly to set up a match.

And to the mods: could you close this topic maybe? I think Kael perfectly understood my point, and the changes he's talked about will address the imbalance perfectly. I never meant for this to get so... angry ;)

Bringa, I play FFH only multiplayer, so I do know what we are talking about and I'm not slightly interested in playing a game with someone who thinks they can own a human player with a few units. And can you please understand that I can go for Order even with Amurites and build as many confessors as Offenbarungsjoe ? Or I could go for the AV and build Ritualists which have even Summoning.

About your last comment: if you want to send a message to Kael there are several neat ways. Opening a discussion and closing it when you have no arguments other than "play against my uber confessors and I will own you" is really far from the netiquette of which you are so concerned about.

I know in single player these adjacent tile collateral damage spells are way too strong. Its obvious that the damage percentages need to be tweaked. Druids casting Crush do the same thing. Two druids can destroy anything as long as they get a chance to cast.

This seems to unbalance the game, perhaps there's some counter, but who cares? Many greatly engineered aspects of FfH II just got negated due to the errors these spells-IMO.

I hope it gets fixed.

really the best counter for magic of any kind is to use magic yourself. if your mages are better than their mages, then they wont be able to win. if their mages are better than yours then you will lose.

onedreamer, Fireballs are not in any way better then ring of flames. They are only three strength, and, unless I'm missing something, two movement. You can naturally promote your confessors to be two movement. Fireballs are weak, and does not do as much collateral damage as a ring of flames does and cannot kill with collateral damage.

Here's an easy test: Open world builder and make a stack of 10 confessors with fire 2. Then make a stack of 10 mages with fire 2. You can even give your 10 mages an infinite amount of shield walls for protection if you like. Next, come back with the results. (the confessors will win, every time, no matter who starts first (assuming the shield walls don't attack))

Give the mages Spell Extension and a haste-caster, start them a few tiles apart... Depending on the terrain, the confessors may never get close enough.

I for one think Pillar of Flames is incredibly more powerful, even though I seemed to notice that with the last versions RoF's power increased.

Well, that depends on if the unit casting is Meshabber of Dis (http://civ4wiki.com/wiki/index.php/FfH_Meshabber_of_Dis_%28Hero%29). If so, I'd argue that Ring of Flames (doing 30-89 base fire, for a maximum of 55-114 fire damage before resistance is applied). I mean, a ring area of effect does have some value. Otherwise, yes, 15-44 + (up to 35) Fire + 15-44 + (up to 35) Holy means up to 100-158 (before resistance) from Pillar of Flames.

Give the mages Spell Extension and a haste-caster,
Ahh, yes, forgot about that.

The thing with pillar of flames is that is can only be casted by six people in your empire, as opposed to ring of flames. So, individually it might be better, overall ring of flames is more unbalancing.

Give the mages Spell Extension and a haste-caster, start them a few tiles apart... Depending on the terrain, the confessors may never get close enough.

That's entirely not the problem. It's obvious that as soon as one unitclass with greater range can kite another unitclass they'll win. But you can't always chose where and how you want to fight stuff and in such cases (which happen most of the game) a spell like ring of fire is simply too strong. I do not see any reason why someone would dispute that. It's so totally beyond comprehension to see people telling that ring of fire is fine. Come close to a city with about 7 units of yours, click a button and the city is yours whatever the enemy used to defend it.

I'll phrase it again in a different wording: An ability which has the power to deal an infinite amount of damage is simply WRONG.
If you want to keep ring of fire's effect as it is now you'd need to assign a fixed damage value to it, so the damage is spread over all the affected units and not applied to every single one of them.
The problem is a matter of scaling. The power of a unit shouldn't additionally scale linear with the number of enemies it is facing. It is already scaling linear with the amounts of that unit you bring to combat. Any sort of double linear scaling like this results in imbalances regarding the combat value of such a unit.
Simply by analyzing this scaling you already see another possible solution for the problem: make it so that a unit can only be damaged once every x turns by ring of fire. Could be simply done by applying a promotion to an affected unit which makes it immune or reduces damage by 95% until the promotion vanishes or whatever.

of course, capping it like seige is an option,
but that still doesn't change the problem as described by
"It is already scaling linear with the amounts of that unit you bring to combat. Any sort of double linear scaling like this results in imbalances regarding the combat value of such a unit."
essentially, it would become the useful form of cannons/catapault-and retain most of its abuseablity(just adding a few support units)

if you make ring of flames into aura of flames-[all units in 9*9,including the casters tile]
but then-if he has high priests or some such with lots of direct healing, he can spam just enough to kill your units and heal his own.

the problem is that ring of flames is fundamentally broken
it needs to be switched with another spell such as

-firebolt, deal fire damage to target unit
that unit gains the burned promotion
(-10% or so regen, half health from the heal spell and shrine of saryona,)

of course, capping it like seige is an option,
but that still doesn't change the problem as described by

Sure it does. If you cap it somewhere the scaling isn't linear anymore. If an ability scales linear with the number of affected units it means that if you use it on twice as many targets it will deal twice the damage. With a cap it won't do more damage if you increase the number of targets over the cap.

i think ring of flames should deal a random amount of damage, then spread it amongst all targets. if the base fire strength was somewhat lower then it would be reasonable

I'd recommend swapping pillar of fire and ring of flames. Reason is simple: single target vs aoe. Without exception that I can think of, aoe > single stack > single unit. Granted, pillar of fire currently does more damage to one stack that the ring, but it's relatively easy to contrive a situation to have the ring affect 2-3 enemy *stacks* at once.

On a personal note, I've dubbed the practice of bringing large stacks of priests to kill masses of AI units as "confessor bombing".

I would make sure there are no aoe damage spells of level 2. Reserve aoe for level 3 spells only.

onedreamer, Fireballs are not in any way better then ring of flames. They are only three strength, and, unless I'm missing something, two movement. You can naturally promote your confessors to be two movement.

Is it a game for kids or what ? Fireballs are more powerful than RoF if you consider Mages to defend against Ritualists/Confessors, because they are RANGED. This means that with a proper tactic your confessors will not have a chance to cast their spell, or not all of them. If you can naturally promote your confessors with Mobility I, I can naturally promote my mages with Mobility I. I obviously know that in terms of raw power, RoF is better. But this is a strategy game...

Also what you guys are missing is how to express a problem. There is a problem. Ok, let's analyse it:

statement: Ring of Flames damage output is too high, making this spell too powerful. (note from Onedreamer: I think it wasn't so powerful once. It may be the new combat system that modified its power, if somehow it goes back to the dmg output of 0.16 I think it should be fine again).

statements in this thread: Ring of Flames is too powerful because with a handy confessors I can conquer the world, kill billions of units, be invulnerable to any unit, be superior to any other possible tactic or counter-tactic, and I can show you how, but if you ask me to show it, I will just answer with "I won't go on with a list on how I can do it" or "Check it yourself with World Builder" instead of using the good old mathematics, geometry, and words.

But I have to agree, it does not matter if fireballs are ranged if you attack cities. When you attack city, you have clearly designated goal amd you know where are you enemies, all that ranged attack changes is that it will take 1 more turn to reach city. Stories about 'mages being able to run 1 tile away and then cast' are silly, they cant run away since you are attacking city. My 2 cents, but I don't see the point of this thread since we all agree that it is too powerful and Kael is now seeking to change the way spells deal damage.

I have never really minded RoF (probably because I have yet to play FfH in a multiplayer game), but I think I've found a few glitches with it. I believe Kael said that half of Order civs' RoF damage should be Holy, and Half of Veil Civs' damage unholy. Ritulists RoF don't seem to be doing any unholy damage.
Also, the RoF spell of a Priest of the Leaves (ok, I cheated using worldbuilder) with FoL as state religion did holy damage. I've also seen my FoL units go to serve the Mercurians.

its pillar of fire spell that deals holy damage.

the way the pillar of fire deals damage is it is always half fire half holy but if the unit has the AV promotion then it deals no holy damage but the same amount as unholy

oops double post. the forum is out to get me

But I have to agree, it does not matter if fireballs are ranged if you attack cities. When you attack city, you have clearly designated goal amd you know where are you enemies, all that ranged attack changes is that it will take 1 more turn to reach city. Stories about 'mages being able to run 1 tile away and then cast' are silly, they cant run away since you are attacking city. My 2 cents.

My 2 cents are: before advising ppl to try did the RoF worshippers actually try ? You don't need to retreat mages, ranged spell simply means that your 10 confessors won't be able to reach a city defended by 10 mages. Fireballs collateral damage doesn't kill ? True, but the fireball itself does. And since it can be cast from at least 2 tiles away, this means that 10 confessors should resist 20 fireballs, at least 3 confessors should survive to be able to kill the whole stack of mages. Try it out...

My 2 cents are: before advising ppl to try did the RoF worshippers actually try ? You don't need to retreat mages, ranged spell simply means that your 10 confessors won't be able to reach a city defended by 10 mages. Fireballs collateral damage doesn't kill ? True, but the fireball itself does. And since it can be cast from at least 2 tiles away, this means that 10 confessors should resist 20 fireballs, at least 3 confessors should survive to be able to kill the whole stack of mages. Try it out...

10 mages can have a stack of macemen with them, and it won't help them a bit. 10 confessors can have a stack of macemen with them, and they'll be immune to the mages' attacks. Or, if you don't like that, the confessors could also take a mobility promotion/have one haste caster with them.

10 mages can have a stack of macemen with them, and it won't help them a bit. 10 confessors can have a stack of macemen with them, and they'll be immune to the mages' attacks. Or, if you don't like that, the confessors could also take a mobility promotion/have one haste caster with them.

in other words-
there is only one perfect defence against ring of flames(fire immune) and the only other solution can only be taken by a magic resistant civ promoting to fire resistence(this is still imperfect-useless if they have enough)

for fireballls- all you need is 2 fire immune units, and 2 healz,

I *****ed about Ring of Fire first time I saw it too, because it was great being able to use a Tier one unit to ANNIHILATE all defenders in a city. Know how you deal with the mages? Stack more units. Know how you deal with the confessors? Run the hell way!

I *****ed about Ring of Fire first time I saw it too, because it was great being able to use a Tier one unit to ANNIHILATE all defenders in a city. Know how you deal with the mages? Stack more units. Know how you deal with the confessors? Run the hell way!

actually, its a Tier 3 unit.

Warriors/Scouts are Tier 1 units
Adepts/Prophets/DiscipleOfLeaves/Zealot/Acolyte/etc. are Tier 2 units
Priests are Tier 3 units
High Priests/Inquisitors are Tier 4 units

10 mages can have a stack of macemen with them, and it won't help them a bit. 10 confessors can have a stack of macemen with them, and they'll be immune to the mages' attacks. Or, if you don't like that, the confessors could also take a mobility promotion/have one haste caster with them.

AHA... this is where I was waiting for you to get. So you do not conquer the world with 10 confessors... but confessors + macemen + mage with haste blah blah blah... so were we speaking of Ring of Flames awarding you the ability to conquer the world or of Ring of Flames dealing a hell lot of damage ??

note: leave out mobility promotion, it's irrilevant. If confessors have mob. I promotions mages can have it too, move forward, cast fireball, and move backwards, hence they will still have 2 turns to strike the confessors (without spell extension, of course).

in other words-
there is only one perfect defence against ring of flames(fire immune) and the only other solution can only be taken by a magic resistant civ promoting to fire resistence(this is still imperfect-useless if they have enough)

for fireballls- all you need is 2 fire immune units, and 2 healz,

OMG, after a 3 pages long thread you still don't get it... there are MANY defenses to RoF... first of which is RoF itself. It's a matter of strategy, mind you, this is a strategic game. You should discuss about RoF dealing too much damage or not, RoF being unstoppable is not the case.

I agree, there are plenty of counters. I would still recomend something bCalchet suggested a while ago: letting spells backfire in various ways, which becomes more likely the more you use it. If you use too many RoF in a turn , than a Confessor might accidently cast Pilar of Fire on his own tile instead. I think it should still be a lethal spel, but one that could have serious consequences if abused.

OMG, after a 3 pages long thread you still don't get it... there are MANY defenses to RoF... first of which is RoF itself. It's a matter of strategy, mind you, this is a strategic game. You should discuss about RoF dealing too much damage or not, RoF being unstoppable is not the case.
ring of flames can be used to take out cities with only 1-2 types of units...
something even mages cant do-as fireballs are both attacking units

fundamentally-ring of flames deals a % damage to all adjacent units,
while fireball deals damage limited in 2 ways to a single tile, and deals less damage to units it attacks with a higher strength (you will be left with at least one strong defender, with others merely weakened)

perhaps if the damage of ring of flames is divided by the units combat strength, using the confessors strength as a base, and some sort of non-magic tech counter for fire damage(aquaeus sucellus?)

my 3766586839453 dollars is:

whenever you face combat you need to be ready for anything. if you neglect trying to defend against even one thing then your opponent can exploit it. there is absolutly nothing that dosent have a counter. after all, fraxis was trying to get players to use a variety of units and if you neglect one thing a good opponent can exploit it

AHA... this is where I was waiting for you to get. So you do not conquer the world with 10 confessors... but confessors + macemen + mage with haste blah blah blah... so were we speaking of Ring of Flames awarding you the ability to conquer the world or of Ring of Flames dealing a hell lot of damage ??
The point was, was that equally supported mages will lose against equally supported confessors. Ring of Flames has NO magical equal besides for maybe piler of flames. Also, hasting the confessors is very, very, very easy either use their second promotion on movement or put an adapt in the stack with them that can cast hast. Once that happens the confessors only need to live through TEN fireballs, and enough will to wipe the city out of existence.

Onedreamer, is this what you asked for?
TECHNICALLY:
for less then 1500 hammers you can get 10 confessors and and adapt with hast and one maceman and one pikeman.
You launch a sneak attack and move your units two squares into enemy territory next to a city or stack of units. You then obliterate the units and/or city. Thats how you start, you can then move two squares a turn and always try to end in a fortified position. Any AI that you end within one square is obliterated, fires will probably breakout and inhibit the AI's reinforcements. You should be able to hit one city every two to three turns, which you can just level or bring in additional support troops. The AI shouldn't be able to counter fast enough.

Feel free to poke holes in my scenario, I'm sure there are some, but I didn't even include the possibility of your units getting escorted by your civilization's or religions hero.

Ring of Flames has NO magical equal besides for maybe piler of flames.

Actually, if I remember correctly, both Crush (Earth III - Sorcery) and Contagion (Death II - Sorcery) do exactly the same, but in only 1 tile and doing other tipes of damage (Death damage for Contagion and I don't know wich for Crush).

Here's another big difference between priests and mages: priests can generally get RoF the turn they're built (or maybe a couple of turns later if you're running peacetime civics). 2 xp, and then you have a RoF caster. Adepts need 10 xp to become a mage. While confessors can be made pretty much combat ready, mages require more of an investment.

Here's another big difference between priests and mages: priests can generally get RoF the turn they're built (or maybe a couple of turns later if you're running peacetime civics). 2 xp, and then you have a RoF caster. Adepts need 10 xp to become a mage. While confessors can be made pretty much combat ready, mages require more of an investment.

I wouldn't call it more of an investment as far as hammers are concerned - you just make that purchase earlier, when building the adept.

Gold, on the other hand, does weigh heavily against the mages. (I'd say the likes of Spring, Whirlwind, Haste, Regeneration, Summon Skeleton and other utility spell do quite a bit to counter this, though - a mage will always have something to do, while a confessor is limited to fighting, providing medic and killing himself building a temple somewhere.)

True.

Nothing to do with the topic, but I just remenbered a cool strategy with the Calabim. Vampires can get Death II the turn they are built, and that means Contagion. You can have an army of Contagion casters that have average to good strenght depending on the time (They can have 8 strenght on the late game with Mithril Weapons) that can basically destroy any stack whidout combat and still defend themselves and the cities they capture.

Crush does physical damage, essentially the same type that a melee unit would do. Both Crush and contagion do damage to only one tile, but Maelstrom works exactly like RoF except with lightning damage, which is fewer units can resist.

based on what ive seen, i think the best counter to RoF is Lizardmen Rangers of Sheelba.

Orcs have a natural fire resistance, then sheelba adds on some more via magic resistance, then if you add on 1 promo of fire resist (easily gotten via Apprenticeship), then you're looking at fire immune 2 move units that are easier to get, with 6 strength, who can get 4 movement, so doesn't matter how hasted or mobile those confessors are.

So, someone can have 30 confessors, I can beat them with 15 lizardmen rangers. Or in a normal game, I could just rush a confessor-rusher before they even get confessors while the're rushing them, I believe a confessor rusher would still be researching the order while the first of the rangers rush the warrior defense thats in existence, and would have a decent amount of time, while they finish researching the Order (they need to start working on Priesthood and finding incense after that, tho it wont be very useful once its found, cause like i said, lizardmen rangers with 1 promo are immune to RoF).

To add to the mage vs. confessor battle, Confessors start with Medic II which now leads directly to March. For 5 XP, Confessors can cast RoF and heal themselves even after moving, and very fast thanks to Medic II. On the other hand, you could just spread out your units so that RoF can only hit one or two units and the rest of your army is posed to strike back. Why would you stack your entire army in one tile against someone who's using Confessors? I still think that RoF is too powerful as it is, but with a simple damage cap and perhaps unit cap (number of units that can be damaged), RoF would be balanced.

Backfire possibilities are cooler.

Why would you stack your entire army in one tile against someone who's using Confessors?

Cities. .

army of workers in every tile around the city lol, theyd hafta waste an attack/spellcast on killing them heh

Perhaps Fire damage should be greatly reduced when crossing rivers or bodies of water. Maybe cities could build a new defensive building-a moat-if they have an aqueduct. This could offer something like +50% fire resistance to units garrisoned there.

It would also give a regular defensive bonus, comparable to walls. Perhaps the aqueduct should not be required if the city is on the coast of by a river.

no need for a new building for it, just make it so aqueducts grant +50% fire resistance.

and that is a good idea.

Cities. .
Don't let them get to your cities, attack them in the field.

Don't let them get to your cities, attack them in the field.

And leave yourself open for a scalding counterattack? Only cavalry can get in and away, and that only if the terrain is completely flat. Plus, the confessors might bring a few bodyguards... using mages of your own might work well, but that's any bodyguards at all would make them useless.

The trouble with RoF is that not only is it a considerably more effective spell than fireballs or summons (which require you to attack a stack's top defender,) RoF ready priests are very easy to mass produce. If you lose a mage or conjurer stack it takes a while to wait for new adepts to get back to 10 xp and then you have to pay gold to upgrade.

RoF should be moved up to high priests at fire 3 imho, because units that can deal this level of mass destruction should require more investment to train and to replace.

personally id rather see prophets/disciples/etc. gain XP like adepts, and require Confessors/Ritualists/etc. to upgrade from prophets/disciples/etc.

personally id rather see prophets/disciples/etc. gain XP like adepts, and require Confessors/Ritualists/etc. to upgrade from prophets/disciples/etc.

Just the Acolyte/Zealot types. And give the Acolytes and Savants an extra point of strength while you're at it. :D

hmm.. I like a combination of those changes. Moving RoF to Fire 3, and making them a .. what... lvl4 upgrade from disciples?
Perhaps give different bonuses to the disciple units, based on a resource...
Like, give Savants a (+1 fire) damage if you have gunpowder.
Zealots a (+1 poison) with .. hmm.. what regeants? mabey Dyes?
Runes disc can get the Bronzeworking weapons tier
Leaves maybe a +1 str with a Nature Mana
Order, give them +1 Holy with Law Mana

does that make those units too strong? I guess it would make them 3/1 units but most of them with portions of resistable damage.

I think that making the Priests more on tier with the magic units makes sense, considering how powerful they can potentially be.

Cheers!

And leave yourself open for a scalding counterattack? Only cavalry can get in and away, and that only if the terrain is completely flat. Plus, the confessors might bring a few bodyguards... using mages of your own might work well, but that's any bodyguards at all would make them useless.
If they're attacking your cities I hope you have roads, but that's besides the point. Confessors have weaknesses and those should be exploited. Pitting them against city-stacks is putting them in an ideal situation for their use and exaggerates their strength. RoF is unbalanced for its unlimited damage, but it does have counters.


I do have two other ideas for balance of spells in general. First, require a movement point to cast a spell (with certain exceptions of course). Second, I'd like a "Silence" sorcery spell that prevents spell casting. It would work similarly to Charm Person.

ya, i like those ideas.

i had modded prophets/etc. to gain xp like adepts by giving them Channeling 1 (it didnt let them cast anything, but it gave them xp over time) but still found them without much use, then i gave them the ability to levelup with better healing rates.
but i like the idea of special damage types with certain resources/mana.

id change them to:
Savants (+1 unholy) with entropy mana
Zealots (+1 cold) with water mana
Thane can get Metal weapons
Leaves (+1 poison) with nature mana
Order (+1 Holy) with law mana

If they're attacking your cities I hope you have roads, but that's besides the point. Confessors have weaknesses and those should be exploited. Pitting them against city-stacks is putting them in an ideal situation for their use and exaggerates their strength. RoF is unbalanced for its unlimited damage, but it does have counters.
Should a priest really be a city-buster, though? It doesn't make any sense... I see your point, though.
I do have two other ideas for balance of spells in general. First, require a movement point to cast a spell (with certain exceptions of course). Second, I'd like a "Silence" sorcery spell that prevents spell casting. It would work similarly to Charm Person.
I think that spells that cost a movement to cast should be in the minority. They should be the exception, not the rule.
hmm.. I like a combination of those changes. Moving RoF to Fire 3, and making them a .. what... lvl4 upgrade from disciples?
Perhaps give different bonuses to the disciple units, based on a resource...
Like, give Savants a (+1 fire) damage if you have gunpowder.
Zealots a (+1 poison) with .. hmm.. what regeants? mabey Dyes?
Runes disc can get the Bronzeworking weapons tier
Leaves maybe a +1 str with a Nature Mana
Order, give them +1 Holy with Law Mana

does that make those units too strong? I guess it would make them 3/1 units but most of them with portions of resistable damage.

I think that making the Priests more on tier with the magic units makes sense, considering how powerful they can potentially be.

Cheers!ya, i like those ideas.

i had modded prophets/etc. to gain xp like adepts by giving them Channeling 1 (it didnt let them cast anything, but it gave them xp over time) but still found them without much use, then i gave them the ability to levelup with better healing rates.
but i like the idea of special damage types with certain resources/mana.

id change them to:
Savants (+1 unholy) with entropy mana
Zealots (+1 cold) with water mana
Thane can get Metal weapons
Leaves (+1 poison) with nature mana
Order (+1 Holy) with law manaNo, no, the point of giving Acolytes and Savants an extra point of strength is because they come so much later. Is a 3 strength medic disciple-class unit that can spread its religion and costs, what, 60 :hammers: balanced? Maybe at Orders from Heaven, but not Way of the Forests.

maybe make it the reverse of dnd-divine casters don't get insta-cast(costs 1 movement point to cast a spell)

They should be the exception, not the rule.
That works for me.

I think that giving the Acolytes and Savants an extra strength is fine. The other disciples come too earlier for that to be balanced.

I like the idea of the various strength bonuses for each religions disciples. Perhaps the other religions should get these, but only after upgrading to priests.

I like the idea of the various strength bonuses for each religions disciples. Perhaps the other religions should get these, but only after upgrading to priests.

the bonus is only for acolytes and savants

I'm not sure your point about Them coming so much later is all that valid. I mean, technically they do, but I find that since the Ways techs are so low in cost, If I wanted to I could commonly research Order or Veil only a few turns after the AI has founded one of the other religions. And just because they come later doesn't mean they become dominant religions. Several civs won't come off of Leaves or Runes unless you threaten them to, so they exist in the late game as much as the Order and the Veil do.

If you can found the Order/Veil shortly after the AI founds one of the first three religions, you should turn up the difficulty. I usually see the first religion founded around 70-90 on normal speed, and you definitely can't found the Order that fast without several free techs from huts. The founding tech along takes at least 20 turns if you have several cottages (extra tech to research). The earliest I've seen AV or Order founded was turn 150 (normal) and I think that 60-80 turns is fairly significant.

ring of flames can be used to take out cities with only 1-2 types of units...
something even mages cant do-as fireballs are both attacking units

fundamentally-ring of flames deals a % damage to all adjacent units,
while fireball deals damage limited in 2 ways to a single tile, and deals less damage to units it attacks with a higher strength (you will be left with at least one strong defender, with others merely weakened)

I don't know why you insist in comparing fireballs to ring of flames. Someone said that 10 confessors are unstoppable and I replied that 10 fire-mages are enough to stop them. This is uncontested, so I think we should move on already. Morover, I reiterate that there can be many tactics to stop RoF priests (of course, the AI can't use any of these in a consistent way. The AI wasn't designed to deal with magic, and patches with the SDK won't help much in this sense...). For example if you'll protect your 10 confessors with 2 macemen, your opponent can use assassins to stop them (assassins have 2 movements so they have the initiative again). In particular, it's easier to counter RoF if you are defending, which is good because it's not totally unbalancing.

perhaps if the damage of ring of flames is divided by the units combat strength, using the confessors strength as a base, and some sort of non-magic tech counter for fire damage(aquaeus sucellus?)

Yep, this is the best solution. Also, I think the collateral damage should not be lethal. But I think from the patch notes we have achieved something with this discussion ;)

RoF ready priests are very easy to mass produce. If you lose a mage or conjurer stack it takes a while to wait for new adepts to get back to 10 xp and then you have to pay gold to upgrade.


well yeah, but consider that you can build Adepts before you can build RoF priests, so you can have reserves. Also, it's easier for RoF priests to be attacked because they need to be closer to the front. RoF priests need 1) a religion and 2) a strategic resource to be mass produced. Mages don't need either. This said, it's still true that it's easier to mass produce Priests on a large scale war in the middle game. Requiring Priests to be promoted instead of being built immediatly could be an idea, but the AI is not good at managing this, and in the end I'm afraid we would probably see an even lower usage of magic from the AI. So ... I'm unsure. Perhaps it would be better to increase the rate at which arcane units gain XP until a certain amount of XP.

So, I decided to at least try and see if making the Priests an upgrade unit like mages would make things a little more interesting. It does satisfy making RoF harder to get, and makes sense thematically, that lower level religious devotees have to work to become priests. And added Channeling 1 to the initial units, for xp gain.
but , for some reason, I never get the option to upgrade the units. I made sure that the upgrade path was right for the initial disciple units, and set the Priests to iMinLevel to 3. I went over the xml values of the adept/mage relationship, and didn't see anything else different about it. I did a quick serach through some of the py files, but didn't see anything there that would assist this process.
Also, I checked the stats between Pillar and RoF, and decided to swap their level. haven't tested that yet.. since I can't get priests right now!
Anyway, anyone know if there is something I am missing in this process?

Cheers!

EDIT:: Also, katika, you're probably right about going up a level, but I actually get into a little trouble there, as they say, I'd rather be lucky than good. Anyway, even if that is about right for an average time difference between the religions popping(usually its actually quite a bit longer, I usually play on epic so its relative, unless I rush for one of them), My point about the "early" religions hanging around in at least a few civs till the late game is still valid, I think... why handicap them just because they come early? they should still have a chance of being competitive later on.

did you have incense?

upgrades still require their required resources

Haha, sorry, Indeed. That was the issue, but I forgot that, in my case, my first religion was Runes, and Stonewardens require Gems, not incense.

Just rana test and that part does indeed work as expected... durr...

Thanks for that SS... sometimes you just have to check to make sure the power switch is turned on before calling for service!

Cheers!

it might be worth removing resource requirements on priests since they require upgrading, and then only apply resource requirements to high priests and inquisitors

I could go with that, just move requirements to be optional for the upgraded str promotions.
I just ran with it for a bit, but I am thinking of lower the cost on the Priest units, as right now they are pretty expensive. MAybe thats okay, but some civs seem to have more trouble than others collecting cash...

Cheers!

:hmm: What if priests could be built without incense, but their rate of xp gain was lower unless they had some.

id rather see incense adding +1 holy damage to priests and disciples under Runes or Order, and reagents adding +1 unholy under Ashen Veil or OO.

What about Leaves? Maybe they could get poison damage from it.

I like the suggestion of having Mana be the optional bonus to create the damage bonuses. That makes it a little more valuable, and the strategy of making powerful priests from a variety of religions by bouncing from one to the next should be cut down also.
So, to keep that balancing factor, we can't go to the usual mana.lets see..
Mana from Holy Building / Bonus / Bonus Mana req.
Water / +1 Cold / Choas?
Earth / +1 Fire / Fire?(need fire for forges right? thematic?)
Nature / +1 Poison / Mind(inventive use of nature?)
Entropy / +1 Unholy / Death(seems to easy, but?)
Law / +1 Holy / Life(again, easy, but thematically okay, I think).

What do you think? Ultimately, they are mana that would most likely be built by those inclined to those religions anyway, so its not necessarily super restrictive, but it would limit having really powerful priests for multiple religions(I know that has been a concern from some)

Leave Incense prereq for High Priests and Reagents for Inquisitors?

Whats everyones opinion of swapping RoF and Pillar? It seems like ultimately RoF does more damage over more potential targets. seemed to make sense.


Cheers!

What about switching RoF and Pilar, but letting the spell extensions cause the ring to spread 1 or 2 tiles further, with decreasing effect.

Well, I'm pretty sure Priests can't get spell extension, and thats okay... that promotion feels too arcane to port it over to me anyway. nota bad Idea though. maybe just make the spell act that way right out.. but since this thread started with how overpowering that spell is to begin with, extending its capacity may not be in line with the general consensus.

Cheers!

Maybe the Veil priest should have the option, since there religion was founded my mages. It seems like all the complaints were about Confessors, because holy damage is harder to resist than unholy. Lets give them a reason to hate Ritualists more.