OK first and foremost, summons should NOT cost ANY support whatsoever, skeleton's DON'T need food. Water elementals DON'T need food, ect...

A few spell spheres that I don't think work are. Sun, its first 2 spells are great but the tier 3 summon is just plain stupid. Come on, its a little weaker than normal elementals but has +2 affinity, whooooaah! Thats exiting!(sarcasm)
Someone needs to rethink that sphere.

Shadow sphere is cool for the most part, blur is great for attacking citys, shadowstep even greater. Mistform is interesting, can wreak havok on the enemy. But come on, the sphere is SHADOW, is there not anything cooler for sphere 3? I was thinking a mass stealth would be better, but it should require council of esus religion and should be an additional spell along with Mistform.

Earth, good for the most part but im really bugged by stoneskin, archmages are weak and stoneskin won't protect you from an assassin, could you make it so in addition to giving the caster stoneskin, it also gives the stack a weaker but similar promotion.

Law, probably the worst one. Loyalty is situational, VERY situational. Host of the einhejar or whatever is easily the most pointless summon, seriously its just stupid. And valor, oh my god, what a dumb spell. It should be permenent, give you half an XP per turn, and give as it does now an extra xp point from combat, also it should automatically cast loyalty to. THEN it would be useful.

Entropy, rust=good, wither=Good before fall further, why did you take away the no XP part? If you want to take away that wither needs to be MUCH stronger, -20% hp per turn is to weak. pitbeast=COME ON, ANOTHER SUMMON!!!!!! My gosh let me list all the summons from the arcane powers.

Summon:Specter,water/air/fire/earth/ice elementals, wraiths, skeletons, aurealis, djinn, sand lions, mistform, host of the einherjar and the pit beast.
WOW thats a lot of summons, The elemental trees should for sure have summons, death should have summons. But anything else for the most part should not, entropy being no exception. I guess a djinn and mistform is OK, and the sand lion is civ specific, but the host of the einherjar, aurealis, and the pit beast should be elminated.

Thats pretty much it. For the most part the spell system is solid, just the overdose of summons can get annoying. I miss a bunch of the arcane spells from the old spell system, and a really think we should bring some back and get rid of a lot of the summons, or rather don't get rid of them but make two sphere 3 promotion choices, choosing one will block out the other.

Anyways I have been pushing for spell system changes for a long time on the vanilla FFH2 forum, but since this is non official im hoping that you guys will make the changes.

Im hoping the dev team for FF will brainstorm a few spell ideas in there free time and post them in this thread, then have the community help find the best path to take and give there own ideas and maybe in a month we could have a completely new spell system thats not just 1000000 summons.

Anyways for now PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Post ANY ideas you have for spell spheres that just don't work. Make sure that they aren't overpowered and also fit for the sphere. Im not talking a complete rewrite of everything, just a few changes, mostly for sphere 3.
Im hoping we can come up with an additional sphere 3 spell per sphere that could be an alternate choice. And for the sphere 3 spells that suck now, hopefully a fix for that, like my idea for valor.

POST YOUR IDEAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Summons do NOT cost support in FF, though they do still cost you Unit Supply costs at present.

We have massively rethought the spell system as a whole. But a complete overhaul takes a lot of time, time which we don't really have during the schoolyear.

Main thing about the spell system that will change is a removal of Python from the majority of the spells. It will speed up the system as well as making the AI more capable with it. Rather than a simple AI Weight value telling them that spell X is ALWAYS better than spell Y, it will be able to weigh the current situation and surroundings to decide on what to cast.

I do encourage all players to post any ideas they have. Do NOT restrict yourself to things that "the code can handle" or "the AI can understand." Trust me, I work miracles when the idea is good enough. And even though we have our own ideas, it doesn't mean they won't change if you post something amazingly awesome.

Awesome its GREAT to hear you guys want to change it, I look forward to any changes to come and will think hard on new spell possibilities.

I wonder if Unyielding Order should or shouldn't be moved back to being an arcane spell instead of a divine one. The Order already has an incredible happycap-remover (Social Order), and giving them exclusive access to what are essentially 3 or 4 mobile Towers of Complacency seems like something of a game-breaker to me, not to mention overkill. You could then make Host of the Einherjar a divine spell and give them Law affinity to make them less of a Pit Beast clone and give the Order a bit more of an offensive bite (which they lost when Ring of Flames became Veil-exclusive and Pillar of Fire was made Chalid-exclusive).

We have massively rethought the spell system as a whole. But a complete overhaul takes a lot of time, time which we don't really have during the schoolyear.

Awesome its GREAT to hear you guys want to change it, I look forward to any changes to come and will think hard on new spell possibilities.

Well - kinda.

We had a discussion for a feature that was initially going to be an "Amurite thing" that had potential to become a significant addition to the spell system in general. I don't think I've ever been close to considering it as a replacement though.

As it stands, some of that feature is a nice example of what we can do, but not all of it seems like something we should do without a more pressing reason. The rough draft of it also didn't tie too closely to the lore (most of the effects were "fantasy" but not "FfH"). It's something we're definitely looking at a little later on though, as there's some real potential there.

In the meantime, I may be tempted to take some of the proposed effects and apply them to the existing summons to further differentiate them.

====

Just as a quicky though - if you're making an objective poll, try not to skew the options quite so much. "YES!!!!!!" vs "No, even though <insert complaint here>" isn't so much looking for information from a neutral standpoint as it is a continuation of your argument.

First - +2 affinity for anything except perhaps Ice is an massive kick-ass thing. Have you really built five sun nodes + religious wonder (gives sun mana) and sent forth Chalid and some sun elementals? A 20+ super, super unit backed by summonable elementals with 5 (base) + 12 (sun) damage? Or similar.

And Order should not in any way be nerfed, it needs some more 'cool' things rather to stand against the awesomeness of the ashen veil. Hmm.. a little drunk and tired right now.

A few spell spheres that I don't think work are. Sun, its first 2 spells are great but the tier 3 summon is just plain stupid. Come on, its a little weaker than normal elementals but has +2 affinity, whooooaah! Thats exiting!(sarcasm)
Someone needs to rethink that sphere.

Just a suggestion, have you tried following empy and hoarding Sun mana for Chalid?
It makes him pretty much a beast, and having +2 affinity on their elementals mean that they can easily pick up +10 str on larger maps with simply 5 sun manas for example.

*edit* lol Arctic beat me to posting about that


Shadow sphere is cool for the most part, blur is great for attacking citys, shadowstep even greater. Mistform is interesting, can wreak havok on the enemy. But come on, the sphere is SHADOW, is there not anything cooler for sphere 3? I was thinking a mass stealth would be better, but it should require council of esus religion and should be an additional spell along with Mistform.

I like mistform, though undoubtedly it was nerfed with the raider trait in FF.
I used to like using them on the Svalts since they had raider+arcane, as well as shadow mana.
In FfH, archmages with spell extensions can simply let their mistforms pillage very far into enemy territory, not to mention earning very decent gold in the process.

Earth, good for the most part but im really bugged by stoneskin, archmages are weak and stoneskin won't protect you from an assassin, could you make it so in addition to giving the caster stoneskin, it also gives the stack a weaker but similar promotion.

Assassins are str 6, with stoneskin, archmages can very easily defend themselves from at least one assassin. Especially summonner archmages who pick up combat promos to buff their summons.
Of course if you let multiple assassins attack your archmage he would undoubtedly die, but thats what the guardsman promo is for.

Law, probably the worst one. Loyalty is situational, VERY situational. Host of the einhejar or whatever is easily the most pointless summon, seriously its just stupid. And valor, oh my god, what a dumb spell. It should be permenent, give you half an XP per turn, and give as it does now an extra xp point from combat, also it should automatically cast loyalty to. THEN it would be useful.

Loyalty is easily one of the best tier 1 spells being so accessible.
Any frequent mutation user would attest to that. I go out of my way to grab law mana when I play bals just for loyalty.
Oh and in MP a simple loyalty spell would make rival Domination archmages cringe.
Host being "pointless" and "stupid"? I'd never scoff at a tier 2 summon. A str 5 summon at tier 2 is already a very useful spell. For any arcane civ getting tons of mages early, tier 2 summons are what's important.
Undoubtedly its not as strong as spectres when you hoard death mana, but its very useful in the midgame when you can't get that much either.
The same can be said about Tier 2 pit beasts.

On the whole the spell system could be tinkered with to perhaps include more interesting spells than a bunch of summons I agree there.
But that is what Vehem and Xien did when they added the Force, Ice, Creation, Dimension spheres, so give them credit for that.

Quick responce about the Aurealis. I totally know they can be amazingly powerful with a bunch of sun nodes (im in the middle of a game with the malakim right now actually), its just that, its SOOOOO boring. Oh and loyalty is GREAT with crazed/enraged units, but aside from that there are very VERY few uses for it. It is situational but I agree its very powerful when the situation calls for it.

Most of my complaints are because the summons are so cut and dry for the most part, I can't take it. As to the tier 2 summons, I understand they can be useful, very much so that early on. However theres NOTHING interesting about them otherwise, its just a base strength unit with angel or demon race. Too dull in my opinion.

I just want each summon to have more unique features, water/air/fire are really cool and unique, THOSE are the innovations I want to see for summons. Not just base strength adjustments.

Again one of the main things I miss is spells like contagion, damages enemy units and gives disease. (forgot the name) but it turns the enemy unit barbarian. Stuff like that. I would still love in the arcane tree to see an ice bridge spell, possibly an alternate tier 3 sphere. It turns the water tiles from +2 spaces adjacent into ice for a couple turns, that way you could traverse sea with an army without ships.

I can't take cut and dry, anything that repeats itself to much is dull to me, thats my main problem with the summons, yes there all powerful, but some are to dry.


And to Vehem: Thanks for your post, and when I did the poll I was kinda in the heat of the moment pissed off at summons like aurealis' and earth elementals. So pay no attention to the !!!!'s :P

On another note if you can implement a newer system but don't want to. Could you just make a module with the changes, people who want it could get it and people who don't could play the game as normal.


And again im going to say it just may be me ticked off with a few things. Repetition bores me in game like this, civ is great because theres SOOOOO many different things you can do. And when I do something as in depth as magic in FFH2+FF I want it to feel different every sphere. And when half of the summons I have used feel like the same thing I want to just quit. So its my vice. I may sound like a broken record with this but I still can't believe how few spell damage spells there are in the arcane tree. Maelstrom and wither (which was nerfed in FF) are all that come to mind right now.

some more spells would be great. MaxAstro posted some great suggestions for new ones in the RLD thread ;)

OK im brainstorming some spell ideas for a second 3rd sphere choice. If it was implemented it could be a module instead of in the actual mod should you guys choose.

Entropy: Drain life. Damages enemy units within a tile of your choice (tile would be the 8 surrounding the caster, but can be expanded by 1 tile length per spell extension) 20% (modified by spell damage) and heals your own units within one tile (starting in your tile) by 20% once per unit(modified by spell damage) per enemy unit drained. Will only heal living units, can be demon and undead for example but not catapults and ships. For example you have combat 3 and spell extension 1, you cast this on a stack of 5 champions 2 tiles away. There are 3 friendly units in your stack including the archmage and 3 units in another stack a tile next to you. The spell damages each champion by 35% and one champion resists it. The archmage is full health, the other two units in your stack are not and recive 35% health each. The units next to you are all at 50% health. Since you drained 4 units and two of yours were already healed only 2 units in the stack next to you will be healed.

Sun: Heat wave. Turns 50% of surrounding tiles into desert and forrests into scrub for about 8-12 turns and damages units surrounding the archmages Teamates AND enemys by 10-35% fire damage modified by spell damage.

Force: Force Push. I seriously did not want it to sound like a star wars refrence. Pushes enemy units surrounding the archmage away by 1-2 tiles depending on strength of the unit. Higher strength=less chance to be moved 2 tiles. Lower=Higher chance of being moved two tiles. The chances to move a certain ammount of tiles would be %'s modified by strength. There is a small resist chance and if your high strength you would have a small chance of not being affected by it at all regardless of resist. After being push backed the unit is snared and has 1 less movement speed for one turn. Only affects units surrounding the archmage. Has one turn cooldown where the spell cannot be casted.

Air: Hurricane. Similar to Force push but is more focused on damage. Takes one turn of casting to work. Deals 15-20% damage (modified by spell damage) to units in a selected tile. The tile is by default +1 space from the caster but spell extension increases the range by 1 tile. Units in the tile have a default 33% chance to be pushed back one tile. The chance is modified by strength. 10 strength would have a 33% chance. 7 strength would be 50% (just rough estimates) Units pushed back a tile will have an additional 50% fall damage (modified by spell damage) inflicted on them and if it takes the unit past 90% damage can kill it, the kill chance is a base 60% chance. In addition if cast on a city it will have a chance to destroy building based off of how many hammers they cost. So a monument would be destroyed before a forge in most cases. It would have a small chance to destroy each building, maybe 10% and the chance would increase or decrease depending on the hammer cost. It will not destroy wonders. A market would probably have a 30% chance of being destroyed for example.

Water: (You saw this one coming) Flood: Deals damage to units surrounding the caster. Deals very heavy damage to units with any fire damage. Extra damage dealt is dependant on percent of the units damage being fire. Otherwise it deals average damage to the tiles affected. Probably about 30%. 25% chance that a tile affected will have flood improvement, if it lands on a tile with an improvement on it already (save unique features) the existing improvement is destroyed. The flood imrpovement lasts 1-3 turns and blocks off the tile to anything without cold resist or cold damage.

Body: Grow muscle. Range 1. Unit of your choice will gain a promotion "Bulked Muscle" for 2-3 turns, the unit will deal drastically more damage. 50% more and an additional 10% per 5 spell damage. For example metamagic 3 and combat 5 will give your unit 130% damage. After the muscle wears off the unit will feel the effect of small muscles again and the arms will remain expanded causing them pain. 10% damage will be dealt to the unit and they will experience 1-2 turns were the spell will not be able to be cast on them.

Fire: Supernova. Takes SIX! Turns to cast. Very destructive spell but can also hurt you. Range=2. The mage harnesses all magical power availible to create a supernova on a small scale. The spell can damage your own units, enemy, and friendly units. You cannot cast the spell near friendly units, however if the units stay in the area after you start casting there will be no negative diplomacy effects. Every turn the mage gains 30% strength per turn due to all the power being harnessed, this allows your units to get out of the way while the mage casts the spell without the mage at too big a risk of dieing. When you cast the spell the AI will try very hard to kill the archmage. So it is risky even with your troops out of the way. However if the spell is able to cast the damage is immence. It will take the enemy citys population down by 1/4 if a city is within the two tile radius. And deal a wide range of damage to units caught within the radius, units within one tile from the caster will be damaged by about 80%, damage will be scaled on strength of the unit and increased by spell damage. A warrior with iron weapons would most likely be fully damaged by it while a champion with bronze will be more around the 65% mark. If the spell deals 80% damage there is a 70% chance the unit will be killed based off strength, warriors and hunters will have a very high chance of dieing. The second tile will be damage by about 60-70% A warrior will most likely be killed still, and a champion or two might. All tiles effected will undergo 5-10 turns of radiation, applying a -10% heal aura to all units and causing the tile to be unworkable. The units caught in the blast will recieve a promotion "Radiated" dealing an additonal -10% heal aura and reducing strength by 40%. A very powerful spell but I feel for the fire tree and for having a LONG cast time it is balanced. I can't imagine how hard it would be to code it though.

Spirit: Encouragement. You encourage the city and its workers to be positive in all actions and working harder for the good of the city, this generates happiness, more production, less crime and mantinance, and yields more gold return. This spell applies the hope building as well as the encouragement building in one cast. Last as long as the caster stays in the city. Provides 2 happiness a 25% production boost in the city plus an extra 4 hammers (making it great in citys with low production) lowers crime by 30% and mantinance by 50%. In addition each tile will yield an extra coin as the workers will work for less money for the good of thier city.

Ice: Ice bridge. Creates a bridge out of ice allowing your units to cross continents without ships. Range +3. Only affects water tiles, must be next to water in order to cast. Each Ice block will last from 2-5 turns.

(I will add to this list as I come up with more ideas)
Most of the percents I list are just estimates, it can be freely modified. I am trying to get as close as possible to what I see the spell being. Also a note, some of my spells will have different %'s based off the units strength. In most cases I think stronger units should be more resistant to some of the effects.

A big question for anyone who knows the answer. When a spell says "deals 20% damage" will it damage each unit affected by 20%, or will it deal damage depending on the strength of the unit. I would find it odd for a warrior with strength 3 to be damaged only .6 while a champion with 6 strength would be damaged double that with 1.2 Now does the spell system we have deal damage dependant on strength or does it deal damage dependant on percent. The latter would be really wierd as stronger units would be punished more. If this is true is it possible to make spells instead do damage = to strength. For example a spell could have a damage of .5 strength, and each unit affected would be damaged by that ammount. I ask this because the damage in spells is a percent number and that confuses me.

OK first and foremost, summons should NOT cost ANY support whatsoever, skeleton's DON'T need food. Water elementals DON'T need food, ect...

What, you think mystic incense, rare paints for summoning circles and custom made arcane foci are free? Not to mention mages require hazard pay for risking their immortal souls bargaining with other-worldly entities.

If anything summons should cost more than normal units.

That would make sense from a gameplay perspective as well. You don't pay anything to create them, they are powerful and there is no incentive to keep them alive. Make them cost a little more for the few turns you actually use them, it's still a lot cheaper than paying for a standing army all the time.

The problem is of course that you wouldn't pay for units that you lost during you turn, so there would be tricks you could use to avoid paying upkeep. But that's a technical issue.

What, you think mystic incense, rare paints for summoning circles and custom made arcane foci are free? Not to mention mages require hazard pay for risking their immortal souls bargaining with other-worldly entities.

If anything summons should cost more than normal units.

That would make sense from a gameplay perspective as well. You don't pay anything to create them, they are powerful and there is no incentive to keep them alive. Make them cost a little more for the few turns you actually use them, it's still a lot cheaper than paying for a standing army all the time.

The problem is of course that you wouldn't pay for units that you lost during you turn, so there would be tricks you could use to avoid paying upkeep. But that's a technical issue.

Never even thought of that. I guess its fine the way it is. Thanks for pointing that out!

While on the subject of spells, I jsut wanted to say...

I like all the spells that create a temp building in a city. They are a neat mechanic that I enjoy.

One spell I don't care for is Water walking. Since it is Caster only and not the stack it doesn't help me very often at all.

The biggest issue with redoing the Magic system is the AI has to get better with it. I never blink at trading away KotE since I know the AI does a terrible job of using its mages and spells on them when it does.

Your Entropy 3 spell sounds great for vampires, not to mention that the other ones sound interesting and useful as well.

Thanks, I only wish I had the experience or know how to make these spells possible. Then I would totally make a module with these things.

I still don't exactly know how the spell system works as far as how dealing damage goes. If someone could elabrate on it that would be great. Like is the damage dealt based of the strength of the unit. Does all damage have to be in percents. Can the damage just do a base strength without having to summon a unit. Any insight would be appreciated.

Let's face it: there are too many kinds of Mana to support a robust, differentiated spell set for each. Instead of so many sets, each with only three spells, I'd like fewer sets with more spells. For instance, arcane units could progress in Alteration/Divination/Elementalism/Necromancy with different Mana needed for varied spells in each school.

For instance, arcane units could progress in Alteration/Divination/Elementalism/Necromancy with different Mana needed for varied spells in each school.

Something like this could end up being really cool, with spell requirements kinda like in a trading card game.
So, for example there could be a Meteor Shower spell requiring 3 Fire, 1 Sun and 1 Creation Mana or something.
Mix in spell levels (kinda like in D&D), i.e. there are for example 9 spell levels, adepts can only handle 1-3, but archmages can handle 1-9, and make level 9 spells as powerful as one'd expect, and this be made of awesome.
I guess this would require more ways to obtain mana, and as a balancing measure, mana types should be usable only once each turn - so even if you have three archmages, only one of them cast Meteor Shower each turn if you have 3 fire mana, two (or possibly one twice) if you have six etc.

Currently, my use of spellcasters is quite limited in most games, since they require a lot of micromanagement to get anywhere and the rewards aren't really that great in my book.
With such changes, though ...
Archmages would become really badass. Should probably incure diplomatic penalties then. "You are using Archmages. -4" :p
_____
rezaf

That is a great idea! If it were made it would have to be a mod-mod or module because some people might not like that way of doing things, but totally cool! I would play either that or a second sphere system.

I still like the idea I had a while ago for a meteor strike spell. I'm not talking the old meteor swarm spell that just pops a couple stronger fireballs. I'm talking Ultimate Destruction Magic Fantasy-Nuke meteors. I'm even thinking reskinning the ICBM for an animation.

Ultimate stackbuster, avg. damage of 75% with a spread of 50%, can kill units and destroy buildings/improvements. The catch? It hits a random tile surrounding the caster including the tile the caster is on. Spell extension can increase the range from one (9 tiles) to three (49 tiles) and also calls an additional meteor with each rank.

I know a lot of people don't like randomness in the game, and the risk of losing your caster would keep a lot of people from using this spell, but I think if the spell is powerful enough, people will take the risk.

Interesting thread. Personally, I would rather have an AI that can correctly use the current spell system then a more complex and shiny version that is cant use at all. If any changes makes it easier for teh AI and less micromangement then great but more "stuff" just for the sake of it seems a waste of effort

I'd still like an alternative 3rd level spell for each sphere, for variety.
As I understand it there used to be many more spells, so it shouldn't be too hard to reimplement some (the 1st and 2nd level spells can be made acceptable as 3rd level by scaling up their effect, I'm sure).

No pressure, I'm quite confident that some reworking of the magic system will be done in FF before I download it (I have yet to explore a tenth of vanilla FfH's possibilities) :)

I'd still like an alternative 3rd level spell for each sphere, for variety.
As I understand it there used to be many more spells, so it shouldn't be too hard to reimplement some (the 1st and 2nd level spells can be made acceptable as 3rd level by scaling up their effect, I'm sure).

No pressure, I'm quite confident that some reworking of the magic system will be done in FF before I download it (I have yet to explore a tenth of vanilla FfH's possibilities) :)

Have a search through the forums, there was an interesting thread about why the spell system was simplified in FfH (and a number of buildings, units and game mechanics removed). There were a few grumbles when it happened but many agree that the game is actually easier to play and much easier to learn.

Variety of spells is cool, it's like icing on a cake but for many people who only really able to play against the AI, adding more icing is less prefereable to a nicer cake.

If i had to list "cake" then getting the AI to use transport ships properly would be high up there. Also, getting the AI to use the current magic system. Rebalancing movement rates for map size (6 movement Hippus Cavalry on a small map - not nice), Getting the AI to play the Scions correctly would be super fruit cake. Reducing the huge amount of micromanagment for spell would be tea cake. Fixing OOS in MP - caketastic.

My own personal cake would be a true Wildlands/ slower expansion option but that is just selfish wishfull thinking

I totally forgot about the AI aspect of things. I guess I would be willing to wait for any spell changes until the AI is able to fully grasp the current ones. One of my biggest grumbles right now is the fact that civs who can use magic well, specifically amurites, usually suck when fighting them and have terrible mage power. I hate it.

So yeah, I guess I will have to wait, mostly for vanilla ffh2 to get the AI working 100% before I should hope for any changes.

It is the fact of getting the AI to understand spells which has led to my thoughts of deciding how to change it up, because the only way to get the AI to use spells properly is to move them all into the SDK.

Few of the spells will change radically, because most of them work nicely as they are. There is a lot of difference throughout the spell system, and this thread actually proves it (the only real complaint has been about the summons, nobody seems to find the actual magic unoriginal).

But the primary change which Fall Further intends to implement isn't in the Spell System as it applies from units, but as it applies from magic as a whole. Magic will become integrated into the entire world by the time we are through (in 6 years or so...)

It is the fact of getting the AI to understand spells which has led to my thoughts of deciding how to change it up, because the only way to get the AI to use spells properly is to move them all into the SDK.

Few of the spells will change radically, because most of them work nicely as they are. There is a lot of difference throughout the spell system, and this thread actually proves it (the only real complaint has been about the summons, nobody seems to find the actual magic unoriginal).

But the primary change which Fall Further intends to implement isn't in the Spell System as it applies from units, but as it applies from magic as a whole. Magic will become integrated into the entire world by the time we are through (in 6 years or so...)

Yeah I guess im one of the few people who have issues with the mass of summons. I dunno, maybe its the fact that I like direct damage spells so much, some of my favorite games involve that (heroes of might and magic 5 for example) so when I see all the summons, it kinda does something to me.

Anyways, what do you mean integrated in the entire world? I just gotta say that now that I think about it, after vanilla FFH2 is finished, fall further is going to pretty much be fall from heavens future. This mod-mod is amazing and I can't wait to see the changes you guys will bring in the near future. But can you elaborate on some things this mod will be most likely doing more on down the line, big changes.

Thanks for your responces in this thread by the way, they are much appreciated.

I can't elaborate on much because we are still planning/developing it. Could turn out that we cannot manage the code to do what we want properly, or that conflicting goals will come up before our timeline hits something that I mention publically, then it never happens ;) We're kinda the opposite of Magister in here :ninja: No talking about what isn't released, but lots of releasing (You know we all like ya Magi, that's why I have to taunt you ;p)

I can't elaborate on much because we are still planning/developing it. Could turn out that we cannot manage the code to do what we want properly, or that conflicting goals will come up before our timeline hits something that I mention publically, then it never happens ;) We're kinda the opposite of Magister in here :ninja: No talking about what isn't released, but lots of releasing (You know we all like ya Magi, that's why I have to taunt you ;p)

On a side note, Magi actually did release his mod. It was maybe a year back and it was actually quite good. Don't think it has been updated but it is certainly not vapourware :P

How about having arcane type magics and summoning magics as separate paths? That would mean coming up with two spells for each mana type.

Another thought, creation of magic items by use of enchanting + another sphere. Or have artificing as a path for each mana type as well.

that's how it was originally, until sometime in early Shadow, i believe

Mwahahah, we'll have 3 paths, Mage, Summoner & Artificer! Oh wait, 4 paths, Mage, Summoner, Artificer & Infuser! (Infuser would be someone who uses magical methods to enhance their own bodies/capabilities. Kind of the difference between Megaman (learn ability to shoot something) and Zero (Learn ability to slash in a new way)

Nice, infuser would be great as well. Makes me think of the idea of physical adepts types. Might work well for Civs such as the Elohim.

Mwahahah, we'll have 3 paths, Mage, Summoner & Artificer! Oh wait, 4 paths, Mage, Summoner, Artificer & Infuser! (Infuser would be someone who uses magical methods to enhance their own bodies/capabilities. Kind of the difference between Megaman (learn ability to shoot something) and Zero (Learn ability to slash in a new way)

But what about Dreamwalkers and War Wizards? Got to have at least 6...

*cough* :D

EDIT: Of course, the Dreamwalker could be done mostly as Domination, whilst a War Wizard would need a boosted version of Dance of Blades...
(references to a book - hunt out "The Sword of Truth" series for more details)

Actually, it wouldn't be proper FFH canon if there weren't 21 different types of spellcasters. Lets see, 21 paths, 21 mana spheres, carry the 1 ... 441 different spells! Xienwolf, you'll be in charge of keeping the manual up to date during the balance and playtesting period. :devil:

it's not that hard if it's all broken down into paths on what sort of effect they can have in the game:
summoning creatures
creating items
direct attack
enhancing ally units
enhancing caster
weakening enemy units
city effects
land alteration
(any other areas?)

from there it become almost formulaic in assigning types of spells for each mana type and level.

different civs might have a strength for one path or a strength in two paths and weakness in a third. the different path types require research into them.

land alteration

....

from there it become almost formulaic in assigning types of spells for each mana type and level.


Can you list 21 types of Land Alteration effect though? (or even 63 if you want 3 levels for each type though?)

Organizing the paths would be trivial - populating the spell lists without just duplicating effects or adding "filler spells" is the hard bit.

Could it be done? Yes
Can it be done right this second? No
Can I come with a few ideas right off the top of my head? Sure
Would it be a good idea to have a group of people brainstorm ideas? Of course
Would there be overlap of effects? Likely, but I don't see why that should be a problem as long as the majority are not duplicates.

Some ideas to start with:
Air: enhance windmills ---> ???? ---> ????
Body: modifies terrain food
Chaos: ???? ---> ???? ---> Warp Terrain (something that totally randomizes the terrain)
Creation: modifies terrain industry
Death: ???? ---> Haunted Lands ---> ????
Dimensional: ???? ---> Roads gain Rail Road movement ---> ????
Earth: ???? ---> Create Hill ---> Create Mountain
Entropy: ???? ---> ???? ---> Create Hell Terrain
Fire: Blaze ---> ???? ---> ????
Force: ???? ----> increase terrain movement cost for other civs ---> ????
Ice: Snowfall (without the damage effect I see no reason why this should be a channel 3 when effects to counter it are channel 1) ---> ???? ---> Ice Bridge
Law: modifies terrain commence
Life: Sanctify ---> ???? ---> ????
MetaMagick: ???? ---> Dispel Magic ---> Create Node
Mind: ???? ---> ???? ---> Forget (hides/removes from other civs maps)
Nature: Bloom ---> Age Forest ---> ????
Shadow: ???? ---> Fog (places terrain under permanent or duration fog of war for other civs) ---> ????
Spirit:
Sun: Scorch ---> ???? (Increase farm output?) ---> ????
Water: Spring ---> Create River ---> Create Lake

Some of the levels could be filled in with area effects.

edit: added a few ideas

I'd like the highest level spells to do some insane stuff, no matter if the 'AI' will ever grasp it. Raising continents from the ocean, siege (arch)magi pummeling an entire Kuriotate metropolis into ash with meteors, instant death spells (resistable of course), extreme body augmentation. Chaos and randomity on epic levels.

It doesn't have to be 21...that would be absurd. You could have 7 lines for 21 spheres. So you only need to make 147 spells. Silly.

I did some thinking about the spell system, and kind of got carried away and came up with a complete re-balance. Fewer summons and redundant spells, the situational spells become a bit more generally useful, and things are generally simplified a bit. It’s quite simple, there’s only one new spell (the mass-hide effect suggested by previous posters), and that spell and the changes to Dimensional are the only things that would need programming that isn’t already available somewhere else.

The new layout – asterisks indicate spells that would be altered in some way. My reasoning and explanation is in italics.
Alteration
Body: Haste, Regeneration, Flesh Golem
No change here. (but see my suggestion at the end)
Creation/Nature: Growth, Fertility, Vitalize
These two spheres are quite similar thematically, and with some spells from each going other places they combined perfectly.
Metamagic/Enchantment: *New Spell, *Enchanted Blade, Spellstaff
See Creation/Nature, above.
Law/Force: Loyalty, *Valor, Wall of Force
Wall of Force fits well with Law, and Force is now otherwise non-existent. Valor gets a significant change and moves down a level to be the offensive version of Stoneskin.
Divination
Mind: Inspire, Charm, Dominate
No change here.
Life: *Sanctify, Cure Disease, Resurrection/Birth
Destroy Undead always seemed far too specialized for a level 2 spell, but occasionally useful, so now it’s still there but has other functions. Cure disease gets added in as thematically perfect, possibly freeing up some more variety in divine spells. Birth is there so that there is a reason to make getting Life 3 useful more often.
Spirit: Courage, *Host of the Einherjar, Trust/Spirit Guide
Hope moved so that each mana node tech would lead to a city improvement spell, and Host moved it to make the level two summon non-alignment themed. Spirit Guide is added for the same reason as Birth was in Life.
Sun: *Blur, Blinding Light, *New Spell
Scorch went over to Fire, freeing Sun up to be more army-support themed. The new spell is there to give people a few more options for damaging spells.
Elementalism
Elementalism received fewer changes than the other three categories. The level 3 summons with affinity are still there, encouraging specialization in a single element. Ice got simplified a little bit to take out the different-but-similar spells for arcane and divine, and to bring back another damage spell possibility.
Air: *Arcane Eye, Maelstrom, Elemental
Earth: Wall of Stone, *Stoneskin, Elemental
Fire: *Scorch, Fireball, Elemental
Ice: *Ice Elemental, Stasis Curse, Snowfall
Water: Spring, *Water Walking, Elemental
Necromancy
Chaos: *Hope, Mutation, Wonder
Dance of Blades gets cut for redundancy, so Hope got moved over to give Necromancy a city-boost spell.
Death/Entropy: Skeleton, *Rust, Lich/Wraith
Summons make sense for Death, which is why skeletons are still there. I felt that it should do something else, though, so Rust and Wither got melded and brought over to replace Spectres.
Dimensional: *Treetop Defenses, *Escape, *Teleport
Escape and Teleport are both upgraded a level to balance out their new ability to affect multiple units, with pushed out Gate and made it less useful. A less terrain-specific Treetop Defenses fills the level one hole, making Dimensional mages ideal army escorts.
Shadow: Slow, Shadowwalk, New Spell
The new level three spell to replace Mistform (cut for redundancy with Elementalism) is the closest thing in this rework to an entirely new spell.

Changed Spells
Enchanted Blade – Affects all units that can use Bronze/Iron/Mithral weapons
Makes the spell less specific and allows it to absorb several other single-unit-type buffs.
Rust – When cast on units that do not have a weapon promotion, inflicts Withered
Makes Rust a level 2 spell and now useful against people without weapons.
Escape – Now affects all units in the stack
Teleport – Now affects all units in the stack
Sanctify – Includes slightly weaker Destroy Undead effect
Because both Sanctify and Destroy Undead were very situational.
Arcane Eye – Re-themed to be an Air-related scouting spell.
Water Walking – Affects all units in the tile, but only for one turn (so the Mage has to stay with the units and keep casting until they hit land again)
No longer mage-only, but in compensation prevents the caster from using other spells while moving.
Scorch – Includes the effects of Smoke
Now a more accurate mirror of Spring.
Blur – New picture representing a heat shimmer
Stoneskin – Affects all units in the stack, +2 defense power, Heal 10% after combat, removed after combat
Simplified and slightly de-powered, but now no longer mage-only.
Valor – Affects all units in the stack, +2 attack power, Heal 10% after combat, removed after combat
Changed to be the offensive version of Stoneskin.
Treetop Defenses – Now works on any terrain, but the units may not move next turn. Also, re-themed to represent Dimensional magic
So now it’s useful when there are no forests. The one-turn wait is to balance the significant increase in usefulness.
Hope – No longer provides free Courage promotion, re-themed to be a Chaos-based entertainment act.
Courage was not Chaos themed, plus now all of the city-buff spells except Wall of Force are Adept-level.
Ice Elemental – Now has zero base strength (but still has Ice Affinity)
Always seemed like a weak level 2 summon, now it’s a weak level 1 summon with the potential to become a quite strong level one summon in the late game.
Host of the Einherjar – Re-themed to be a neutral spirit, normal strength instead of holy strength
Having two identical summons themed for different alignments was even more redundant than most, so now they’re combined. If possible, having the special damage type be based on the alignment of the casting civilization (or even a different unit based on alignment) would bring back some of the old flavor.

New Spells
Shadow 3 – Grants hidden to caster and all units in the stack, so long as the mage remains with them. Cannot be cast while inside enemy territory (so once a unit becomes visible, you have to leave to recast it
I always thought Shadow should have something to do with invisibility, and judging from this thread I’m not alone. That’s why I felt comfortable with this spell, which is the closest thing to an entirely new spell I’m suggesting.
Sun 3 (Sunburn) – Like Maelstrom, but only hitting enemy units
More options for damaging spells, but with a twist to make it worth Level 3.
Enchantment 1 – Creates a building that increases provides a small amount of production and trade (probably 2). The theme being that the unit is setting up shop in the town and enchanting things
A nice complement to the other city-buffs, similar to Inspiration or Hope.

Spells that go somewhere else
Fair Winds – Becomes Arcane Barge only
It was only used on naval units anyway. It should probably be improved slightly to balance out not being available as soon.
Dispel Magic – Now a Mage/Archmage ability that requires Arcane Lore
Frozen Lands – Becomes High Priest of Winter only
Smoke – Rolled into Scorch
Wither – Rolled into Rust
Destroy Undead – Rolled into Sanctify, effect weakened to balance out being available earlier
Summon Frostling – Now Illian only, similar to Sand Lion
The Force 2 ranged attack – Becomes a default ability of Mages, with Archmages getting a slightly stronger attack
Summon Pit Beast – Host of the Einherjar now covers both.

Spells that are actually gone
Dance of Blades – redundant with Valor, now.
Poison Blade, Flaming Arrows – redundant with Enchanted Blade, now.
Summon Djinn, Aurealis, Spectre – redundant with other summons
Summon Mistform – Level three summons are now the sole property of Elementalism and Death Mana. This is the one spell that I cut that I feel should still be available somehow, just more rare. Possibly a Gibbon Goetia only spell.
Accelerate – I’ve never actually been able to use this spell for some reason, but as near as I can tell it’s redundant with Haste.
Create Portal – With Escape and Teleport being more useful, this becomes much less useful and its spot went away.

Other mana-related issues
The elements all have summons with affinity bonuses, as does Death, and Nature has actual units with affinity bonuses. But I think that the others should all have cumulative effects. Chaos can get Earth's chance to discover resources (being chance based, after all), Shadow gets the old Entropy effect, and Sun could give a small percent-based culture boost, like mind does to research.
For Dimensional, I was thinking increased road movement, but that seems like the kind of thing that would be easy to abuse. Another option would be (if possible) to lower terrain movement penalties within your borders.
Lastly, in this system all of the palaces easily convert to the slightly smaller variety of mana (no palace produces both of any of the four pairs that got combined). However, Stigmata of the Unborn would end up producing Death, which makes three building that can produce Death mana (and still none other than shrines that produce any of the other types). I therefore suggest either Dimensional or no mana at all (replacing it with some kind of hell-themed bonus instead).

A few other suggestions:
>I’d like to see Flesh Golems change to a National Unit, because it’s really irritating to have an Archmage waste a promotion on a spell that only gets cast once, and then later on have the Archmage die and lose the golem too. The only reason I didn’t suggest that above was that I couldn’t think of a good replacement Level 3 Body spell.
>Grasslands are not always better, and so it would be nice to see Vitalize function in reverse as well.
>It would probably be a lot more difficult programming-wise, but it would be nice to see the Dimensional spells actually create one-turn portals, so you could selectively move units.

I'll probably try it myself when my programming skills get better, but that could take a while.

I did some thinking about the spell system, and kind of got carried away and came up with a complete re-balance. Fewer summons and redundant spells, the situational spells become a bit more generally useful, and things are generally simplified a bit. It’s quite simple, there’s only one new spell (the mass-hide effect suggested by previous posters), and that spell and the changes to Dimensional are the only things that would need programming that isn’t already available somewhere else.

The new layout – asterisks indicate spells that would be altered in some way. My reasoning and explanation is in italics.
Alteration
Body: Haste, Regeneration, Flesh Golem
No change here. (but see my suggestion at the end)
Creation/Nature: Growth, Fertility, Vitalize
These two spheres are quite similar thematically, and with some spells from each going other places they combined perfectly.
Metamagic/Enchantment: *New Spell, *Enchanted Blade, Spellstaff
See Creation/Nature, above.
Law/Force: Loyalty, *Valor, Wall of Force
Wall of Force fits well with Law, and Force is now otherwise non-existent. Valor gets a significant change and moves down a level to be the offensive version of Stoneskin.
Divination
Mind: Inspire, Charm, Dominate
No change here.
Life: *Sanctify, Cure Disease, Resurrection/Birth
Destroy Undead always seemed far too specialized for a level 2 spell, but occasionally useful, so now it’s still there but has other functions. Cure disease gets added in as thematically perfect, possibly freeing up some more variety in divine spells. Birth is there so that there is a reason to make getting Life 3 useful more often.
Spirit: Courage, *Host of the Einherjar, Trust/Spirit Guide
Hope moved so that each mana node tech would lead to a city improvement spell, and Host moved it to make the level two summon non-alignment themed. Spirit Guide is added for the same reason as Birth was in Life.
Sun: *Blur, Blinding Light, *New Spell
Scorch went over to Fire, freeing Sun up to be more army-support themed. The new spell is there to give people a few more options for damaging spells.
Elementalism
Elementalism received fewer changes than the other three categories. The level 3 summons with affinity are still there, encouraging specialization in a single element. Ice got simplified a little bit to take out the different-but-similar spells for arcane and divine, and to bring back another damage spell possibility.
Air: *Arcane Eye, Maelstrom, Elemental
Earth: Wall of Stone, *Stoneskin, Elemental
Fire: *Scorch, Fireball, Elemental
Ice: *Ice Elemental, Stasis Curse, Snowfall
Water: Spring, *Water Walking, Elemental
Necromancy
Chaos: *Hope, Mutation, Wonder
Dance of Blades gets cut for redundancy, so Hope got moved over to give Necromancy a city-boost spell.
Death/Entropy: Skeleton, *Rust, Lich/Wraith
Summons make sense for Death, which is why skeletons are still there. I felt that it should do something else, though, so Rust and Wither got melded and brought over to replace Spectres.
Dimensional: *Treetop Defenses, *Escape, *Teleport
Escape and Teleport are both upgraded a level to balance out their new ability to affect multiple units, with pushed out Gate and made it less useful. A less terrain-specific Treetop Defenses fills the level one hole, making Dimensional mages ideal army escorts.
Shadow: Slow, Shadowwalk, New Spell
The new level three spell to replace Mistform (cut for redundancy with Elementalism) is the closest thing in this rework to an entirely new spell.

Changed Spells
Enchanted Blade – Affects all units that can use Bronze/Iron/Mithral weapons
Makes the spell less specific and allows it to absorb several other single-unit-type buffs.
Rust – When cast on units that do not have a weapon promotion, inflicts Withered
Makes Rust a level 2 spell and now useful against people without weapons.
Escape – Now affects all units in the stack
Teleport – Now affects all units in the stack
Sanctify – Includes slightly weaker Destroy Undead effect
Because both Sanctify and Destroy Undead were very situational.
Arcane Eye – Re-themed to be an Air-related scouting spell.
Water Walking – Affects all units in the tile, but only for one turn (so the Mage has to stay with the units and keep casting until they hit land again)
No longer mage-only, but in compensation prevents the caster from using other spells while moving.
Scorch – Includes the effects of Smoke
Now a more accurate mirror of Spring.
Blur – New picture representing a heat shimmer
Stoneskin – Affects all units in the stack, +2 defense power, Heal 10% after combat, removed after combat
Simplified and slightly de-powered, but now no longer mage-only.
Valor – Affects all units in the stack, +2 attack power, Heal 10% after combat, removed after combat
Changed to be the offensive version of Stoneskin.
Treetop Defenses – Now works on any terrain, but the units may not move next turn. Also, re-themed to represent Dimensional magic
So now it’s useful when there are no forests. The one-turn wait is to balance the significant increase in usefulness.
Hope – No longer provides free Courage promotion, re-themed to be a Chaos-based entertainment act.
Courage was not Chaos themed, plus now all of the city-buff spells except Wall of Force are Adept-level.
Ice Elemental – Now has zero base strength (but still has Ice Affinity)
Always seemed like a weak level 2 summon, now it’s a weak level 1 summon with the potential to become a quite strong level one summon in the late game.
Host of the Einherjar – Re-themed to be a neutral spirit, normal strength instead of holy strength
Having two identical summons themed for different alignments was even more redundant than most, so now they’re combined. If possible, having the special damage type be based on the alignment of the casting civilization (or even a different unit based on alignment) would bring back some of the old flavor.

New Spells
Shadow 3 – Grants hidden to caster and all units in the stack, so long as the mage remains with them. Cannot be cast while inside enemy territory (so once a unit becomes visible, you have to leave to recast it
I always thought Shadow should have something to do with invisibility, and judging from this thread I’m not alone. That’s why I felt comfortable with this spell, which is the closest thing to an entirely new spell I’m suggesting.
Sun 3 (Sunburn) – Like Maelstrom, but only hitting enemy units
More options for damaging spells, but with a twist to make it worth Level 3.
Enchantment 1 – Creates a building that increases provides a small amount of production and trade (probably 2). The theme being that the unit is setting up shop in the town and enchanting things
A nice complement to the other city-buffs, similar to Inspiration or Hope.

Spells that go somewhere else
Fair Winds – Becomes Arcane Barge only
It was only used on naval units anyway. It should probably be improved slightly to balance out not being available as soon.
Dispel Magic – Now a Mage/Archmage ability that requires Arcane Lore
Frozen Lands – Becomes High Priest of Winter only
Smoke – Rolled into Scorch
Wither – Rolled into Rust
Destroy Undead – Rolled into Sanctify, effect weakened to balance out being available earlier
Summon Frostling – Now Illian only, similar to Sand Lion
The Force 2 ranged attack – Becomes a default ability of Mages, with Archmages getting a slightly stronger attack
Summon Pit Beast – Host of the Einherjar now covers both.

Spells that are actually gone
Dance of Blades – redundant with Valor, now.
Poison Blade, Flaming Arrows – redundant with Enchanted Blade, now.
Summon Djinn, Aurealis, Spectre – redundant with other summons
Summon Mistform – Level three summons are now the sole property of Elementalism and Death Mana. This is the one spell that I cut that I feel should still be available somehow, just more rare. Possibly a Gibbon Goetia only spell.
Accelerate – I’ve never actually been able to use this spell for some reason, but as near as I can tell it’s redundant with Haste.
Create Portal – With Escape and Teleport being more useful, this becomes much less useful and its spot went away.

Other mana-related issues
The elements all have summons with affinity bonuses, as does Death, and Nature has actual units with affinity bonuses. But I think that the others should all have cumulative effects. Chaos can get Earth's chance to discover resources (being chance based, after all), Shadow gets the old Entropy effect, and Sun could give a small percent-based culture boost, like mind does to research.
For Dimensional, I was thinking increased road movement, but that seems like the kind of thing that would be easy to abuse. Another option would be (if possible) to lower terrain movement penalties within your borders.
Lastly, in this system all of the palaces easily convert to the slightly smaller variety of mana (no palace produces both of any of the four pairs that got combined). However, Stigmata of the Unborn would end up producing Death, which makes three building that can produce Death mana (and still none other than shrines that produce any of the other types). I therefore suggest either Dimensional or no mana at all (replacing it with some kind of hell-themed bonus instead).

A few other suggestions:
>I’d like to see Flesh Golems change to a National Unit, because it’s really irritating to have an Archmage waste a promotion on a spell that only gets cast once, and then later on have the Archmage die and lose the golem too. The only reason I didn’t suggest that above was that I couldn’t think of a good replacement Level 3 Body spell.
>Grasslands are not always better, and so it would be nice to see Vitalize function in reverse as well.
>It would probably be a lot more difficult programming-wise, but it would be nice to see the Dimensional spells actually create one-turn portals, so you could selectively move units.

I'll probably try it myself when my programming skills get better, but that could take a while.


WOW...... VERY nice job, I love almost everything about that list. Its not like a gamebrakingly different change but seems to be so much better than what we have currently. I would totally like to see this brainstormed a little more and edited a bit then implemented into the main game.

The changes for the most part are great and the chopping off of a few uneeded summons is exactly what I wanted to see. Very good list....

Has anyone ever thought about adding new spells that you need two adepts to produce? For example... two archmages with level 3 dimensional, could create a portal where x amount of units can pass through... etc. Or joining two current spells to create another spell. If mage 1 has Fire 2 promotion, and mage 2 has Fire 2 promotion, they together could make a stronger spell if they are used in unison. not as seperate. A possible spell of using units to create a forcefield around cities. Joining two entire mana spheres to create air and fire for a flame drift, where it shoots forth fire in a given direction up to so many spots away... or fire and earth, which allows the creation of volcanoes, etc...

Has anyone ever thought about adding new spells that you need two adepts to produce? For example... two archmages with level 3 dimensional, could create a portal where x amount of units can pass through... etc. Or joining two current spells to create another spell. If mage 1 has Fire 2 promotion, and mage 2 has Fire 2 promotion, they together could make a stronger spell if they are used in unison. not as seperate. A possible spell of using units to create a forcefield around cities. Joining two entire mana spheres to create air and fire for a flame drift, where it shoots forth fire in a given direction up to so many spots away... or fire and earth, which allows the creation of volcanoes, etc...


Interesting idea, the problem. Could the AI handle it? I don't think this would be possible for the AI to understand. Aside from that I would have loved to see this implemented.

Forget the AI for a second, how would we handle it? Would the spell only become available when both units are selected? Can you even select two units that are on different sides of the map at the same time (the only real way for you to control where both ends of the portal would be)? I'd love it if you could, but this sounds very difficult to code and to use.

Combining spheres that a single mage has to allow for better "cross sphere spells" isn't hard at all, and I've been planning that for quite a while.

You could have one caster cast a spell that creates a promotion that lasts for one turn. The req is that, somewhere on the map, there's a caster with the promotion necessary to cast the other part of the spell.

The other caster has a spell that requires the first caster's new promotion on the map, and uses that caster's location as the target of the spell.

I'm glad we forgot about the AI.

I almost used a vaguely similar Goldberg device until Vehem suppled the 1 line of python I needed to replace it. :)

What is that one line of python? I might want to use it for my Create Portal spell instead of making it always link to the capital. If it needs 2 Dimension III casters though I should probably make it a second spell instead of getting rid of the normal dimensional gate.

What is that one line of python?

The similarity was just in the Goldbergian nature of what I considering doing - trying to do something with a lot of map searches plus a new unit and some promotions. All I needed was a modulo operation (%).

I would think that in order to use the spells between two magic users, you would have them be in the same stack. As to choosing which magic users are linked together, is it possible to have a popup of all of the current magic users in the stack, like when choosing which unit you wish to have a general join, that way you can have more control over which units spells you wish to use.

Why not just make portals an improvement, like castles, etc, except it requires archmages to build them. Make them work like the obsidian gate. In fact, they could basically be airfields...

That could be tricky. The way it currently works, each tile stores information about what tile to target when the enter portal spell is used. The portal improvement itself isn't really needed, it is just a prereq for casting. If you just add a portal though world builder the spell will always take you to tile x=0, y=0, the lower left corner of the screen. Target locations are easy to set in python, but it would be kind of hard to control where it should go in game.

Having them work like obsidian gates could be nice, but I have no idea how that would be done. It would almost certainly require a lot of SDK work.

How about not requiring the two archmages to be on the same tile, but use them as the ends of the portals... then x, y is equal to where they are located... have the conditions be that the portal can only open when both archmages use the spell. Also set the conditions that the archmage cannot cast other spells during this because of the strain of keeping the gate open, and also make sure the gate will close if the unit is lost, and/or the unit moves.

What is that one line of python? I might want to use it for my Create Portal spell instead of making it always link to the capital. If it needs 2 Dimension III casters though I should probably make it a second spell instead of getting rid of the normal dimensional gate.

I personally do not believe in deleting anything that is not redundant... so making it a second spell is a perfect idea.

That leaves the problem of how to know which archmages are to be connected. It would probably require cycling though all the promotions of a lot of units quite often, and still be really awkward if you have more than 2 potential casters.

I'm thinking the best way to track both ends may be using the master/slave summon-tracking system. I don't think this can make a preexistant unit count as slave to another, so I'd probably have to make one end be the archmage and the other be a permanent summon that that unit must summon prior to moving to a new location to open the portal.



With normal FfH rules the dimensional gate spell and the obsidian gate building/Nexus wonder are redundant, but Xienwolf changed it so that more such buildings let you transport more units.



What if I decided to flip things around, and instead of making a different Dimensional III spell so as not to encroach on the uniqueness of the Nexus, I made the Nexus more unique by giving it a unique spell? (This would work like Sirona's Touch, but be much cooler.) It wouldn't be hard at all (only 1 line of xml) to make owning the Nexus be a prereq for the Open Portal spell, and to make all portals lead back to The Nexus. You could then only have 1 pair of portals at a time, but for whoever controls the Nexus Dimensional magic might only require a mere adept to tell the masters back in that city where to open the gate. Also, it would be quite simple (1 line of xml) to only let the owner of the Nexus use the portals, so there would be no risk of letting an enemy use the portal to steal the city without combat like there was in my "link the the caster's capital city" mechanism.

The cheap/easy way to accomplish it would be to override the "Defaults to (0,0)" mechanic. At the start of each player's turn you set their default portal location to (0,0) and you reset the feat "Portal_Targeted".

Then you make the spell available to the Archmage be "Open Portal Destination" and it sets the Archmage's current location as the target for the player's default settings (instead of (0,0)) and marks the feat accomplished. If the feat is accomplished, then nobody is allowed to cast "Open Portal Destination" (can only go to one location per turn), but Archmages are capable of casting "Open Portal Source" which creates a portal on the tile. As long as the tile doesn't have a destination set for itself (mechanic would require that tiles default location is (-1, -1) and the location is taken from Player based defaults instead of tile based as it is currently), then the portal opened would take your units to the destination you established earlier. (obviously this would also require that the portal be created for only a single turn)


Nifty thing you could do with this of course is to have a miscast chance assigned to both spells, and if either one is miscast, then it places a destination assignment on the tile (random location on the map is selected). This means if you ever do open a portal there at a future turn, instead of going where you wanted, it takes you to that random tile.


And yes, you can make a pre-existing unit a slave of another unit. I have been toying with the idea of making Domination form a Master/Slave relationship for a while.

Also, I changed nothing about how Obsidian gates would work, base BtS already had a limit for how many airlifts you could perform a turn. And Vehem made it so the Nexus grants you a free single-shot nexus portal, and Obsidian Gate is a tripple-shot portal IIRC. So with both each city can teleport 4 people a turn.

And yes, you can make a pre-existing unit a slave of another unit. I have been toying with the idea of making Domination form a Master/Slave relationship for a while.

that would be awesome... if the Archmage dies, units it had dominated revert back to their old civ :D

Mwahahah, we'll have 3 paths, Mage, Summoner & Artificer! Oh wait, 4 paths, Mage, Summoner, Artificer & Infuser! (Infuser would be someone who uses magical methods to enhance their own bodies/capabilities. Kind of the difference between Megaman (learn ability to shoot something) and Zero (Learn ability to slash in a new way)

your going the wrong way with this
we don't need more spheres of magic, we need a new method of specialization for magic users, in a way that allows either summons, or spells like fireball
(diffrent techs)

Idea: How about a 4th spell tier? That way more spells could be included in the game, and spellcasters could choose whether to specialize or to dip their fingers in many different mana types.