rather than going on about the various points I could make about fireballs, most of which everyone is already quite familiar with, I'll just cut to the chase and spit out my idea.

IMO the collateral damage and the siege bombardment together are too good. Why not split the bombardment off into another spell, like Azer (which totally sucks AFAIK) for at least some reason to go fire summoning? IE Fireball for collateral damage, Azer for siege. Or even give it to Kikijub - ripping down the walls with big, earthy fists?

Not talking about meteors here, just fireballs. Thoughts?

EDIT: Topic for this should be Fireballs and Markets. Keeping an eye on the AI in Worldbuilder my last few games, I've noticed that the AI prefers to build just about everything in new cities (including Inns, which take much much longer) before Markets. Markets should really come before Inns, and in fact should be one of the first buildings to go up in a new city. It seems they need more weight with the AI so I dont have to keep going through all the AI civs and putting them in their cities :D

I like it. And would prefer Kikijub get the bombard rather than Azer.

fireballs are fine, you want to talk about overpowered then lets talk about the man-of-war's -30 city bombardment 2 shots knock down most cities defenses and unless your units can water walk or that town has a few boats you are up a creek

Astronomy is the end of that tech line, and it can only hit coastal cities. Plus many summons and other spells can hit them. Man O' War SHOULD be that strong.

Fireballs need to be left alone. Aside from boats, it is the Elves and Dark Elves only hope of knocking down city defenses and the leaders get arcane, not summoning.

Arcane has the same effect on Summoning as on sorcery. And they will still have access Via earth summoning, so now not ever have the threat of a forest fire! If anything, you should Love the idea for elves.

exactly what I was thinking.. forcing elves to use fire seems unthematic to me at least

Lets hope a proud paladin with his gilded armor and dire horse will make the minimod we need.
However I'm not sure fireball should lose their bombard ability. A civ turn represents a lot of fireballing time.

That's why I gave Treants collateral damage and city bombard abilities.

Lets hope a proud paladin with his gilded armor and dire horse will make the minimod we need.
However I'm not sure fireball should lose their bombard ability. A civ turn represents a lot of fireballing time.

Well, if you want to be technical about it, could a ball of fire hurt a stone wall at all? Even if it's an exploding ball of fire, it's still not gonna have the kind of punch required, like, say, a cannonball or a meteor...

Well, if you want to be technical about it, could a ball of fire hurt a stone wall at all? Even if it's an exploding ball of fire, it's still not gonna have the kind of punch required, like, say, a cannonball or a meteor...

The sun is a big fireball which could certainly hurt stone walls :p

exactly what I was thinking.. forcing elves to use fire seems unthematic to me at least

but both ironic and balanced because they may set fire to their own forests...

Well there is one ting that sisturbs me with fireball and meteor swarm. It kills alot of units but no-one gets any XP... I want my archmage to get that XP.
/F

Well, the problem with that is there is no way to tie units together on a one-to-one basis so that the game knows whom to give the xp. Of course, it seems like the Unit Design Contest winner, the Divided Soul, would be impossible for the same reason, so maybe the team has/will come up with a way to link units to allow this kind of coding.

Well, the problem with that is there is no way to tie units together on a one-to-one basis so that the game knows whom to give the xp. Of course, it seems like the Unit Design Contest winner, the Divided Soul, would be impossible for the same reason, so maybe the team has/will come up with a way to link units to allow this kind of coding.

it's possible, just alot more difficult than most things, because you have to work with an array(s) (I tried to make an array in vb, adding stuff to it is just depressingly hard, one of the reasons i never truly got started in vb)
then you have to have the array based on more than one number, which requires a smaller array in order to keep track of the connections in numerical order... ect cetera...

hopefully i'll learn how to do arrays in true basic(in school)

Well, if you want to be technical about it, could a ball of fire hurt a stone wall at all? Even if it's an exploding ball of fire, it's still not gonna have the kind of punch required, like, say, a cannonball or a meteor...

Do fireballs lower defense from walls, or only cultural defense? I picture cultural defense as the defender's morale, and I believe I'd be ready to run for the hills if defending a city under attack from meteors!

On the other hand, I like to play the Ljosalfar, and I love this idea. Actually I'd much prefer the effect to be a new spell, "Plague", replacing Poisoned Blade (Nature + Sorcery), so it would be available to mages AND Priests of Leaves.

But aren't the Ljosalfar supposed to lack offensive ability?

Read the fireball entry in the civilopedia.

If you still odon't think the elves should use it, build the act of Nilhorn, and use your giants.

I'm liking treants as siege units, with city bombardment, collateral damage, and the ability to gain unitcombat_siege type promotions.

Read the fireball entry in the civilopedia.

If you still odon't think the elves should use it, build the act of Nilhorn, and use your giants.

Actually I use fireballs and meteors often. I think they're appropriate for the elves, but may be too good.

(But I don't see what you're referring to in the Civilopedia. Does "bombard city defenses" include cultural defense, building defense, or both? I forget.)

Sieging treants reminds me of the ents assault on Isenguard in LOTR. Very cool.

I like the idea of taking bombardment away from fireballs and giving it to an earth summon or spell (replacing Rust with a Crumble spell or something to reduce city defences would be an improvement). It would take just a little edge away from fire mages and force earth mages or siege weapons.

Thinking about it again, I'd prefer it moved off Elementalism completely. Not sure which other tech needs help in warfare and has a fitting sphere though...

Maybe an Enchantment Summon? None there yet.

I'd like to have a wall destruction as a property of earth magic. Kikijub is OK but better is something at sourcery II. Rust is good for Water II in addition to Water walking. And instead of Earthquake something like Sap (range1) - for 1 turn allows units ignore city defensive bonus if the city is within range of a caster.

I'd like to see more fireball-like spells in other mana's tiers personally, and I would like it if ALL spells had +mana affinity, with a corresponding reduction in their base effectiveness. So many obvious options. Call Lightning, Maw of Earth, Radiant Cinders, Flood. Air/earth/sun/water.

It would also be nice if the unit casting the magic's Fortification bonus was applied somehow to the spell damage of all attack spells too. After all, your mage (or summoner) has hunkered down and taken the time for a better magical working, not out in the tundra living in tents.

With such a well made, complete product like FFH its easier to notice whats missing from the pie than otherwise. FFH has too much emphasis on the sword and not enough on the sorcery. Fire is of course the exception, which is what this post is all about.

does lightening have more effect depending on the weapon promo of the target unit ? (as each of those metals are more conductive than the previous .. almost .. remark : bronze weapons are not copper !!)


if not it could be added to make a powerfull offensive spell .

: sorcery + air 3
5str, +1 against bronze, +3 against iron, +5 against mithril.
(so the spell scales with the game and unit : the more equipement you have, the more vulnerable you are)
add to it that the spell attacks until the "lightening unit" is dead.

ie : if a Lbolt is launched against an axe with mithril : 8 the Lbolt attacks with 10str, kills the units and attack the next one... (it is lightening !!!)

or if it rather works as a tile affecting spell :
have lightening bolt give damage to a unit : 50% (it is a L3 spell) then +10% against Bronze equiped, +20% against iron, +40 against mithril. : max damage is 90%.

BUT : if the unit is already damaged, and is killed by the lightening, the remaining damages can be spilled on a unit from the same stack.

Well, unless you make them implement differently, I don't think it is a good use of the space (limit of spell spheres and attempting to keep it to 1 spell per level) to flood the market with attack spells.


The options would be to make it FAR more common to have a resistance and a weakness to damage types. Then even if all the spells work the same, they are not completely interchangeable, you need the right one for the right situation.

Ideally, if not done by making resistances/weaknesses very common (and returning the the rock/paper/scissors aspect, but now with magic), make it so they are not all just "Races" of attack spells. Like water being +50% across rivers or from the coast, sun being +50% in desert.... It would be best to make it so each one was mechanically different, then you run into problems for what you can code.

Like lightning. It can be as proposed above, stronger against weapon promotions. But can you base something off the opponent's promotions? It could also be that it has a larger range than fire, but the strength reduces with range. But can that be done? Or just give it Blitz to simulate chain lightning, or huge collateral damage.

Ideally, Earth would be able to reduce city defense, Lightning would do collateral damage, and fire would do damage over time. But what about all the less obvious spheres? The more spheres that get some kind of attack ability, the more the other spheres desire them, or some other compensation in place of it...

I think that it is fine as is. Yes, if you are looking in terms of fighting, then Fire is the standout as attack, but many people also enjoy death and the upper end of some other spheres... so I think it is nicely set up in that respect.


But Civ isn't supposed to always boil down to a fight. The ideal game you wind up never really having war. Or only short wars to achieve political agenda. And as such, it is remarkable how many options have been worked into the magic system that are NOT fighting oriented. It is easy for us to think of ways to hit stuff, but hard to think of worthwhile ways to go about normal life. So I am quite fond of the work done with the magic system so far, and how difficult it can be to make your decisions for anything but fighting.

But yes, it all boils down to: this is a game, and once your civ is wiped out, you just start up a new game and go at it again. Hence there is no natural aversion to war and fighting. When you have 2 cities left you PREFER to be wiped out rather than sit around scraping out a meager existence. Unless you are lucky enough to be playing a Diplogame, in which case you aren't doing so hot if someone knocked you down to 2 cities :)

What game have you been playing where FFH doesn't have heavy warfare aspect? I just spent sixty turns erasing the Illians after auric declared war on me, and helping Cardith Lorda hold off the doviello and Sabathiel attack the Calabim.

I like your ideas for making attack spell schools characterized against their terrain.

What game have you been playing where FFH doesn't have heavy warfare aspect? I just spent sixty turns erasing the Illians after auric declared war on me, and helping Cardith Lorda hold off the doviello and Sabathiel attack the Calabim.

I like your ideas for making attack spell schools characterized against their terrain.

It's hit or miss for me. Some games the AI plays very aggressively. The past two games I've played, a war has never been started (even with Aggressive AI on).

does lightening have more effect depending on the weapon promo of the target unit ? (as each of those metals are more conductive than the previous .. almost .. remark : bronze weapons are not copper !!)

Both bronze and iron weapons add -25% lightning resistance (i.e., vulnerability to lightning damage)

Just wondering, but how do you know how conductive Mithril is? (Seeing as it is fictional)

Personally I think that the weapons promotions shouldn't be automatic, but should be handled as spells similar to the crew promotions for ships, where you can cast a spell to gain one and loose the others (except it require appropriate resources and technologies.) The you could add more types of weapons with different bonuses and weaknesses (and costs. Mithril could still be the best, but could require, say, 100 gold each time you give a unit mithril weapons.)

I also think it would be cool for Doviello units to steal the weapons promotions from the units they defeat.

does anything in the whole game actually do lightning damage apart from the actual lightning elemental, which is one of the weakest in the game anyways?

The Air III sorcery spell, Maelstrom, uses lightning damage.

That's something anyways.

btw MC, where's this minimod of yours? =)

Read the fireball entry in the civilopedia.

If you still odon't think the elves should use it, build the act of Nilhorn, and use your giants.

Ever tried that? They move one; they do not come out with 2xp for mobility. They cost ~70hammers each (quick speed). The problem is that the giants defend FIRST. I had all 3 die before any of my rangers even defended once. Enjoy building them, but be ready for them to die in the first engagement. Kinda pointless. Unless they are made MUCH less likely to defend, it seems their only place is to exploit the AI via HN.


but both ironic and balanced because they may set fire to their own forests...

I don't think fireballs set fire to forests, only blaze and multi-tile fire spells do. I tested back in .25: 10+ fireball mages, throwing fireballs into a jungle, for ~20 turns - no fire started.

Actually, I think you are onto something with this "Many weapons as ship-style promotions thing"

You could essentially create a RPG style class system with your mages if you wanted to. Equip a Wand and you get attack oriented spells. Equip a Staff and you get support/healing oriented spells. (could even work for summoners. Make the support type be unit transport with high movement, or summons which can sacrafice themselves to build improvements, allowing an adept to fill in as a quick worker... could be awesome to have a magical Civil Engineering Corps who lays roads for your fighting troops).

And of course for the melee you can have a large array of weaponry which can basically be 1 free promotion (allowing to duplicate with current). So maybe a Tower Shield (Shock 1), GreatSword (whatever it is for anti-melee), Light Armor (Light Promotion... weaker, but more movement...), elementally enhanced weaponry... And of course tie in some elemental weakness/strength to the majority of the items to allow counter-strategies with magic going both directions.

It would keep from havig to create a unit for each "basic equipment" item, but allow the game to implement some fundamental style equipment for units :)

EDIT: Oh, and as an answer for how my games manage to not have much fighting... well, the other AI fight quite a fair amount, but I almost always manage to maintain a large standing army, keeping people from trying to pick on me, and I conduct heavy diplomacy, so can typically get anything I want through trade. I trade with enough people that everyone likes me, and if anyone does attempt a war, I typically crush them within 10 turns or so by amassing all of my defenders (generally 1 melee, 1 ranged, 1 sorcery, 1 divine and 1 summon type on each city... as I said.. large standing army). And I typically stay ahead in the tech race well enough that I do not mind handing out some free tech to the lower score people who decide to make demends in spite of my power sometimes.

I have to agree with the idea of specialized soldiers ala ships promos. That would be very awesome. What I don't get is why does each magic sphere and level only get one spell? Etropy divine gets two, why not, say wind? Wind II Sorcery get a Call Lightning spell, say one strength and affinity, that works like Fireball, but weaker. That way fire is still the strongest attack sphere, but it isn't the only way to go for an early attack.

Arcane Corps of Engineers would be so cool :P I'd have to name two of my cities Valdez and Panema...

About giants: AI is very bad against them. Early on AI is programmed not to attack HN hill giants as they normally do not enter cultural borders. And AI workers ignore their approach. So your giants can freely walk through foreign territory pillaging improvements and killing workers, who do not run away. It's easy to push a neighbour into stone age. If you get them rather early.

Yes, that is an exploit. Like with Loki.

Well, the problem with that is there is no way to tie units together on a one-to-one basis so that the game knows whom to give the xp. Of course, it seems like the Unit Design Contest winner, the Divided Soul, would be impossible for the same reason, so maybe the team has/will come up with a way to link units to allow this kind of coding.

Epona in Age of Ice gets experience when her fireballs kill stuff, doesn't she?

Epona in Age of Ice gets experience when her fireballs kill stuff, doesn't she?
As I remember she was only unit able to cast fireballs. So fireballs did not need connection to caster: any fireball gave her experience.

About giants: AI is very bad against them. Early on AI is programmed not to attack HN hill giants as they normally do not enter cultural borders. And AI workers ignore their approach. So your giants can freely walk through foreign territory pillaging improvements and killing workers, who do not run away. It's easy to push a neighbour into stone age. If you get them rather early.

Yes, that is an exploit. Like with Loki.

I was just using them in a recent game and the AI most certainly did attack them while I was pillaging their countryside, and the workers did in fact flee from them.

I was just using them in a recent game and the AI most certainly did attack them while I was pillaging their countryside, and the workers did in fact flee from them.

Hmm... Strange. I thought they are attacked when AI have enough strong unit to be assured in victory. But what can influence on workers behavior I can not even imagine. Are you sure they were HN?

Add my vote to removing bombardment from fireballs. I like the idea of giving it to the earth summon line, very appropriate. Now meteor swarm, that I can see being used for bombardment ;)

Elves can't build catapults. No fireball bombards equals no city capture for them. Maybe earth... but I'll stay away from that, as I hate Summons.

Fireball is 4 fire damage and inflicts collateral, which is why they're good to begin with. M2 summons are often 3-5 str ( why are they ever 3? ugh, looking at you lightning elemental) and don't cause collateral, making them generally quite useless when you consider it took dozens of turns to rank up your adept to Summoner and it has to repel or overwhelm a stack of Champions it took your enemy 3 turns each to build.

no reason it couldn't be earth sorcery rather than summons, rust really should be water ;)

meteor shower
could summon a meteor with 4+2 fire affinty strength, which creates 2 fireballs when it dies...
(instead of three meteors)

Elves can't build catapults. No fireball bombards equals no city capture for them. Maybe earth... but I'll stay away from that, as I hate Summons.

Fireball is 4 fire damage and inflicts collateral, which is why they're good to begin with. M2 summons are often 3-5 str ( why are they ever 3? ugh, looking at you lightning elemental) and don't cause collateral, making them generally quite useless when you consider it took dozens of turns to rank up your adept to Summoner and it has to repel or overwhelm a stack of Champions it took your enemy 3 turns each to build.

You gave every reason why I would like to see it moved to something else.

Elves could still get it another way, like through earth. At least there would be some reason to use SOMETHING else besides fireballs, for everyone, not just the elves. It's like you said "Golly, elves wouldn't get every benefit of the entirely unthematic spell that is really the only one worth using at that level anyways!" They could just use whatever it was switched to for sieges, and preferably lose fire mana from their palace. Just my opinion, but there is just too much fire in the game. The bad guys use it, the good guys use it, the Elves use it, etc etc etc.

And if the palace was changed, they could even still get the collateral damage from fireball by building a node, just like everyone else. I am really not sure what your point is in regards to the OP.

I find summoners to be extremely effective, myself. Sand lions and the death 2 summons work great for me. However I do think the 3 str ones could be bumped up a bit, or at least given more affinity.

For the record, I hardly ever bother bombarding a city one way or the other.. summons and mass damage/disease spells like Air 3, Contagion, and Ring of Flames do the job just fine without the bother of lugging around a catapult. And yes, I only play on Emporer and above.

Note: lightning elementals have blitz. With enough damage via maelstrom or (especially) Crush... each gets 2 kills. If you plan for Air 3, maelstrom, they might come in handy to mop up all the units at 1 hp around your archmages. Of course, that conjurer could be a fireball mage instead...

I'm also going to weigh in and say that Fireball is too strong in its current incarnation and should lose Bombard.

I would support giving the Kikijub a Bombard ability (and a new name!), as well as the Treant.

Also, the Lightning Elemental desperately needs some kind of improvement. Blitz is only useful if it can survive the first attack: how about a very high Withdrawal rate and several First Strikes (to ensure that it can do damage on the later attacks)?

I agree with the sentiment that bombard is a bit overpowered. It does seem to be better suited as an ability for Earth mana spells.

As it is right now, Fire mana is always the first node to be built (if it is not available through the palace. The reason for this is that a tier II spell gives free siege weapons that can be rebuilt outsidde the enemy city every turn. There is no other spell in the game that is any where near that powerful. Meteor Storm is 3 times as abusive.

To me, collateral damage is enough to make both Fireball and Meteor Storm attractive spells. Fire might still be the first mana that a player goes after, but it will not be nearly as overpowered.

Moving the city bombardment spells to the Earth mana sphere will make it much more apealing. As it is right now, the only time I get Earth mana for my mages is for city tethered casters that already have Mind II (for Inspiration) and Spirit II (for Hope) so that they have another spell to cast on the city.

As it is now, my promotion path for combat mages is to get Fire I-III promotions as they are available and Combat I-V promotions to increase the damage that they deal out. I also promote three of my Fire mages with Death mana so that I can create Liches and get 6 Archmages as the result.

Having the two abilities split will make the player have to choose which is more important to promote or require them to build additional casters to balance their forces. It would be a lot more dynamic. It would also take more levels for a single mage to get all of the promotions necessary to decimate a city.

The overpowered nature of Fire mana is multiplyed by the fact that the AI doesn't know how to use it. Right now, spells are kind of like an exploit for the humab player.

Also, the Lightning Elemental desperately needs some kind of improvement. Blitz is only useful if it can survive the first attack: how about a very high Withdrawal rate and several First Strikes (to ensure that it can do damage on the later attacks)?

That is good!

Overall summoned creatures are not so different and specific as they can be. Some variants (assuming stage III to be improved version of stage II), including what is already implemented.
- bombardment
- collateral
- scout (fast, commando, can not attack; III - centry, can see invizibility)
- raider (hidden nationality, III - commando)
- recon sweeps
- buffing casters (can cast random buffing spell III - of higher level)
- assault (first strikes, III - withdrawal, blitz)
- protection (immobile but strong, III - guardsman)
- flying
- cursing (II - withered III -+ Enervation, Diseased)
- medic (III - Heal)
...
May be designed enough for different mana branches.

Extention for different branches may mean not only mobility but, for example, an increasing number of summoned creatures (scout).

Aye, more functional abilities than just raw fighting is desperately needed in the summons. Otherwise the most useful summon will always be a sorcery spell (fireball/meteor, because no matter the strength, it still can always do some collateral damage, and bombard).

Of course, anything that you allow to be summoned must be balanced for the fact that it is disposable, and essentially unlimited. Hence thier current relatively low strengths. But better move and other capabilities are not something which will neccessarily overpower the summons.

Due to limitations in spells a mage can hold in hid head (yes old D&D) I think that the str and def of the arcane units is good. But I would like a spell that enhances the str and def of a mage. This would mean that the mage could either use a summons, a fireball or an enchantment or load up on att and def.

This would represent the spells that a mage would walk around with normally like 2 magic missiles a charm creature some sleep, fireballs and lightningballs and a few other tricks.

So my suggestion would be a spell that gives:
+1 att +1 def and 1 battle per rnd for a adept
+3 att +3 def and 2 battles per rnd for a summoner or mage
+5 att +5 def and 3 battles per rnd for an archmage

The reason is that in all fantasy games and litterature where ou have the possibility to avoid fighting with an archmage you probably do. I mean these guys lay waste to armies and cities alone if they want to so why should a troop with sword wielding ordinary soldiers stand more then 50% chance against em. At least an archmage should have like 90% chance to retreat representing those last beads of teleport, the safe haven and that last resort lightningbolt up the sleeve.

Gamewise this would lso give the possibility to use these units.

My 0.02€
/F

I just find it odd that outside of Fire mana, in a clearly High Magic setting, magic is so inferior to just throwing stacks of quick hammerred melees at something. ( and fire's Summons are downright terrible.. how can the eye of sauron be 3 str? its less powerful than death 1 sorc...)

Fire could be dialed down a little but I'd like the other, utterly wimp spheres like air/summoning in general to get a leg up. Lightning Bolt, dammnit. ( poor amurites though.. if fire gets nerfed, I really think their melees or firebows could tolerate getting some fire affinity)

Come to think of it.... * goes off to my enchantment mana thread*

But better move and other capabilities are not something which will neccessarily overpower the summons.

Hear hear! I second Rogersh... I third ito-... I fourth xienwolf's suggestion:

A Summoned creature is a wonderful opportunity to bring in some flavorful, odd, and sometimes even useful extra/special ability.

I (and my little LAN group) have been playing with a restricted mana house rule: You get your starting 2 or 3, +2 more, and any you can trade for or get via buildings. We did that to try to bring out more "flavor" from the various races. For the most part it's been very successful. (ie, fun.) Each civ's mages "feel" very different in play and lead to different strategies/uses. But conjurers/summoners still seem pretty much the same.

Happily, the supplied editor makes the mod fantastically easy to tune to our preferences, so no complaints! :)

Supplied editor?

Supplied editor?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=174493

yes I found that. Sadly, microsoft excel viewer 2003 won't open it... guess I need the full version from Office?

I think you eed Excel 2007. I remember reading that there is limit to the number of columns (256 I think) that Excel 2003 can handle, and FfH has expanded to use more columns than that.

Maybe teh azer could cast a weaker version of ring of fire
and i think colatteral damage or bombard would be good for the kijikub (earth 2 summon)

Why not just give 3-4 other manas some bombard with tier 2 spells? That would add variety while reducing the 'mandatory fireball' factor.

Would the new magic bombarders suddenly negate the use of fireballs? Probably not. Especially since you can set the percentage to balance.

I've got a question (but maybe outdated) some of my summons comes with a "free promo" promotion... But I can't use it, until next turn... turn in which the summon as already disappeared .. (I think it is the imp : entropyII)

Does it rings something to people? is that already corrected? or is ther a way to go around it ?

Well, in the case of Imps they start with a random promotion for a spell, sometimes nothing, sometimes something useless to you. But it isn't by your choice, and they come "out of the box" with it. That is the only summon I know of that has anything like that though.

i think djinns can have rarely level 2 spells