Some Level 3 spells feel like a Missed Opportunity

The thread title sums this up pretty well, but I'll elaborate of course.

With most spheres of magic, I don't advance beyond level 2. Even when I have archmages, arcane heroes, et al. Because to be frank, I think a lot of the level 3 spells are inferior.

This is primarily because so many of them are summons. The summoner trait is pretty uncommon, and I've never played as any leader using it, because I just don't really like summoning much. It gets somewhat of a meh feeling from me.

This is exacerbated farther, by the fact that most summons have synergy with their particular mana type, and are otherwise of fairly average strength. This forces you to take several mana of the same type if you want to be effective.

Some notable examples:

Fire/Air/Earth/Water
lv3 is summon elemental. for all of these. It's like all the destructive potential of this magic was just ignored.

Some alternative ideas that would make it more worthwhile

Fire III: Rain of Fire.
would simply rain fire down over a 3x3 area, randomly causing damage and destroying improvements. Perhaps, each unit within the area could have a 25% chance of being hit with a random amount of damage. And a 33% chance for each improvement caught in the radius to be pillaged.

Water III: Tsunami.
Although Tsunami fits with the octopus overlords theme, it's pretty disappointing that low level priests have more command over the power of water than an archmage with Water III. It's also frustrating that if you seriously want to fight at sea, you're pretty much railroaded into OO, and water mana is almost irrelevant. I don't think the ability would need any change, but just make the exact same spell that cultists have, available to archmages too.

Wind III: Tornado
would summon (in a way) a tornado unit with a lot of movement (4-6) and a decent chance of automatically pillaging any tile it passes through (40% or so) as well as a chance of causing collateral damage to units on said tiles. The damage could be resisted if units are in forts or cities.

Earth III: Move Mountains
The inability of even the dwarves to do anything with mountains is a bit annoying. A high level earth spell to remedy this would be nice. Simply put, you would cast it on a tile. If the tile contains a mountain, it would become a hill instead. If it's anything else, it would become a mountain.


maybe as a measure to prevent overpoweredness, thse spells could have a casting delay, similar to Bloom. I'm also thinking, since somebody must like elementals, that it would be perhaps good to make these additions to, rather than replacements for, the summoning spells.

So as not to be too negative, I'd like to point out the lv3 spells that I really love.

Nature: Vitalize.
It allows you to create fertile land anywhere. It fits so well with the nature theme, and it gives you something unique. A reason to go down that path. It's so much more original than "summon guardian of nature" or "summon tree spirit" or something similar, that you could have easily done.

Spirit: Trust
Again, completely unique effect. No way to replicate it. A completely unique reason to use spirit mana.

Chaos: Wonder
While this technically is about the least original spell in the whole game, I love the unpredictability and power it's capable of. Never knowing what you'll get is half the fun.

Law: Valor
More xp. Something you always need and want. This spell makes the Law sphere an excellent choice if you want to train superheroes.

Mind: Domination
Enchantment: Spellstaff
again, just awesome, original ideas. Fun to play with.

Entropy: Wither
Slightly odd one, this isn't really all that original, it's essentially just an area damage spell. But it has the added effect of inflicting a (semi)permanant status on the enemy, and it really fits an evil theme well.

Death: Lichdom
I don't use death magic much, since it is pretty much a pure summoner sphere. I like that actually, since I can avoid it entirely if I don't want summoning, and use it if I want pure summoner. It doesn't mix things up in a messy way. I want to highlight lichdom though, because it's an awesome idea, and I would never have thought of it. It's also one of the few examples of a spell promotion granting more than one spell.

Metamagic: Djinn
This is the only summon I would seriously use in a non summoner civ. Because he has affinity with all mana types, he doesn't force me to stockpile on one type, and allows me to be flexible. The Djinn is about the only time I feel that a summon is a good third level spell

Body: Flesh golem
I like this thing because it's far more than a summon. It's a permanant summon, which makes it almost not a summon at all, more like just another soldier in the army. But the ability to fuse with other units, to become stronger and get their promotions, is awesome and well thought out.



That only leaves:
Sun: Aurealis
Shadow: Mist form

I feel the same about these as the elementals. They're just summons with affinity to their particular mana type, and very little else unique about them.

Not certain on what could be added for shadow, but as for sun... I find it a bit odd that sphere contains no vampire killing spell. Are FFH vampires not allergic to the sun ?

Anyways, what does everyone think ?

Seconded. Just leave the summons, and add another third level spell. You can't cast 2 spells on the same turn, so having multiple options is great.

Fire elementals do collateral damage which is great(think of them as a much improved fireball if you don't have the summoning trait). Water III can be very, very potent, especially with a few additional water nodes. Water elemental attacks, dies, creates two elementals that are one point weaker and can attack immediatly. So winning or loosing is win-win. I find these two to be pretty flavorful summons.
[Edit: Misread the original post]
In general I have to agree that we need more tier 3 sorcery and less tier 3 summoning.

You would have liked the old pre-shadow version. Magic was divided into Summoning and Sorcery. Now we just have Summoning for tier three and sorcery for tier two. I prefered the old way too, both summoners and archmages then felt like something to be proud of. And very, very destructive. It was awesome.

The team decided to slim down the fat, balance magic with the rest of the game, and make it easier to understand for beginners.

oh, and no, FFH vampires don't die in sunlight, just uncomfortable in bright sun light.

And a 33% chance for each improvement caught in the radius to be pillaged.

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You know, that's too high. You can kill 100+ turns of towns with a single archmage sitting on a ship/lake/fortified hill without being punished.

So, numbers should be tweaked but I agree with general idea: give us Sorcery and Summoning as different professions back! (or at least make different spells please)

I agree with Kael and the teams decision to cut down on the magic from the earlier versions. It was pretty confusing for a beginner, and the mage/conjurer spilt left conjurers with all the fun stuff. However, I think that Sorcery and Summoning should get the split back ONLY at the tier 4 level. (Archmages/Summoners) I think that this would cut down the requirement of thinking of a ton of new spells, and would add a bit more variety to the magic line. You could give Archmages direct damage type spells and the Summoners all the elementals ect. It shouldn't be too hard to reimplement with a simple Summoning or Sorcery promotion again.

again.. this is why i enjoyed the split paths of summoning and arcane that were in the previous version.

i think all tier 3 spells should have a summon and non summon spell. this would actually make summoning useful regardless of which mana you choose, and for those players that dont like summoning, it giver alternatives. as it stands if you are keelyn or sheim you are pretty much forced down the death, sun, shadow or elemental lines. it makes going down entropy, chaos, nature, spirit or enchantment routes considerably less attractive.

i think the argument for an additional non summon spell at teir three is also very good.

some suggestions:

air: Fly: Gives the caster the flying promo and +1 move permanently, this kind of encroches on haste and water walking though so maybe just tornado as the OP suggests


earth: Quake Lowers city defences and has a chance of destroying a building (or more than 1) in the nearest adjacent enemy city

fire: Wall of Fire: temporarily turns all 8 squares (not peak or water) into burning sands terrain. (iirc units cannot cross burning sands without fire resistance?)

water: Tsunami as per OO preists. OO needs a new spell, but id suggest rather giving them a promo that alows them to 'drown' any units killed in combat and get a free drown)

nature: Summon Guardian Vines as Magister always suggests

spirit: Summon Spirit Guide. a permanent summon with spirit guide and guardian promos, and +1 spirit affinity. give them ability to cast Hope too.

chaos: Summon Chaos Spawn. a unit whose affinity type is random upon creation. ie it could be affinity +3 chaos mana, or affinity +1 life mana, or +1 nature and +2 death affinity.

mind: Summon Mind Bender. an invisible permanent summon who can traven in rival territory that can sacrifice themselves to give an enemy unit the promotion that lunatics start with (i forget the name). does not affect world units.

Light is more than uncomfortable to Vampires, but it is never lethal. Well, I shouldn't say never, since sunburn can kill normal humans too, but it has to be high level exposure over an extended time. Sunlight causes Vampires great (but not unbearable) pain, and deprives them of their normal superhuman strength.




I am of the opinion that most or all of the 3rd tier spell spheres should have multiple spells available, and that there should be at least a few spells requiring multiple spheres.


I definitely think that Water III should have Tsunami, and that Tsunami should have a chance to temporarily change each effected tile to Coast. I'd rather Cultists have a different spell.


For Fire III, I prefer adding Blaze of Glory, an spell that deals a high and uncapped amount of fire damage to units within a 2 tile range, letting you take out huge stacks but killing the caster too. It might place Flames on all effected tiles too.


Tornado as you have it doesn't really seem like a huge change from Air Elemental. It could be good to add, but it is too similar for them to coexist at the same level imho. It could be interesting to have such a summon that starts under AI control (similar to the new enraged, but permanent), so its power would be used rather randomly.


The AI can't be taught to use or counter a terraforming spell like Move Mountain, so Kael won't ever add it. That doesn't really seem like the best implemented spell anyway. For one thing, an archmage really wouldn't be able to enter a Peak tile unless on a Kuriotate Air Ship.





I still really think that the Nature sphere needs to have Summon Guardian Vines again. I don't really think that Nature I or II are ever really worth it, and that it doesn't make sense to have a Mage take the Nature line when a Druid could. In my version I moved Vitalize down to Nature II (and might later move it to the Creation sphere) but gave it a delay like Bloom has, and let Nature III summon Guardian Vines. I also gave the unit some appropriate promotions like Guardsman, Woodsman I/II, Vulnerable to Fire, Elemental, a little poison strength, and the Entangle spell (currently Druid Specific)


I don't like the Trust spell. I don't like any spell that can only be used once. There needs to be a reason to try to get a unit more than one to get the promotion. I rather like moving Corindale's Peace spell to Spirit III (possibly also requiring Life III, or maybe Force III if that sphere is ever added, or possibly making it have a chance to end each war instead of always working).

Chaos III is nice, but I really don't like Choas II. Mutation is more OO theme than Chaos imho, and the spell detracts from Balseraph Freak UUs and the passive effect of Chaos mana. We really need to bring back Summon Chaos Maurader, which was one of the most interesting summons as it would usually betray you to the barbs. I thinking it could be nice for these to start with a permanent promotion that (like Enraged) makes the AI control them and gives them a small chance to betray you.


Valor really isn't up to being level 3 material imho. It could be ok as a level 2 spell, or even level 1 if it had a chance to wear off. I prefer the latter, as Loyalty is now useless. Law III either needs to be Unyielding Order (giving Priors something else instead) or a spell that fights demons/evil units ("Banish").


Domination, and the Mind line in general, is pretty nice.

I'd pretty much change everything about the Enchantment line, making it purely for cross sphere spells, including making several types of equipment. Spellstaffs should really be a piece of equipment imho (and taking or dropping equipment should not count as casting, otherwise it would be rather pointless).


I kinda like Wither, but I prefer it go back to being called Enervation. I also think it would be very nice if it removed Courage, Morale, and maybe also Valor from its victims.


I really don't find Liches that interesting now that they don't start with any promotions other than Undead and are really just for bypassing national limits. I've had a lot of idea of how I'd improve them, but am not sure which I prefer right now.


Imho, Djinni should really be UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT and have Channeling I and II, which would give them access to free Mage level spells based on the mana owned.


Flesh Golems are pretty nice, although I haven't used it in several versions.


I really think that Aureales should start with Perfect Sight (letting them see Invisibility and giving them a bonus vs Illusions) and that that should target assassins/shadows/marksmen in stacks of stronger units, making them great at counter espionage. This is quite thematic and useful and can be handled using some XML fields that BtS added but the mod has never used yet. A bonus versus Vampires could be nice too.


I'm not really sure what to do about Mistforms yet. If the AI could handle it, I'd consider letting it carry other units as cargo, letting small stacks travel invisibly.

definitely agreed with the OP, too many summons and some of them are not interesting at all. I guess we need more spells. and having to choose between summoner or archmage for the last rank for arcane units would be nice. choose your specialization already, dammit!

Some cool ideas.

I think Fly would be a great level 3 Air spell. Maybe caster only, but gives them +1 move, 20% withdraw, and they can move over impassable terrain.

MagisterCultuum said:

Light is more than uncomfortable to Vampires, but it is never lethal. Well, I shouldn't say never, since sunburn can kill normal humans too, but it has to be high level exposure over an extended time. Sunlight causes Vampires great (but not unbearable) pain, and deprives them of their normal superhuman strength.

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That sounds sufficient to make a spell.

Certainly not lv3, but lv 1 or 2 sun magic..

Bright Sunlight - Gives the sunlight promotion to all vampires (vampire defined as any unit with the vampirism promotion, not just the calabim chamption UU) within 1-2 tiles. Promotion is removed when they enter a city, or after 2-3 turns (so 1 turn only on city defenders)

Sunlight promotion:
penalty to healing. To at least nullify the healing bonus from vampirism. Possibly reduce it more so it goes below normal healing rates
-% strength. 10 would cancel out the vampirism benefit. But maybe somewhat higher for the great pain effect.

MagisterCultuum said:

For Fire III, I prefer adding Blaze of Glory, an spell that deals a high and uncapped amount of fire damage to units within a 2 tile range, letting you take out huge stacks but killing the caster too. It might place Flames on all effected tiles too.

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Yikes, that sounds a bit much. Considering how much effort it takes to make an archmage, I have to say I'm really against giving them a suicide spell.

MagisterCultuum said:

The AI can't be taught to use or counter a terraforming spell like Move Mountain, so Kael won't ever add it. That doesn't really seem like the best implemented spell anyway. For one thing, an archmage really wouldn't be able to enter a Peak tile unless on a Kuriotate Air Ship.

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Aww.

As for entering tiles, I was generally assuming it would be done by selecting a tile within 1 radius to cast it upon. Or if that's not possible, even just summoning a "marker" unit that can enter impassable terrain, and cast the spell.

But if it's not going to be done.. oh well.

MagisterCultuum said:

I still really think that the Nature sphere needs to have Summon Guardian Vines again. I don't really think that Nature I or II are ever really worth it, and that it doesn't make sense to have a Mage take the Nature line when a Druid could. In my version I moved Vitalize down to Nature II (and might later move it to the Creation sphere) but gave it a delay like Bloom has, and let Nature III summon Guardian Vines. I also gave the unit some appropriate promotions like Guardsman, Woodsman I/II, Vulnerable to Fire, Elemental, a little poison strength, and the Entangle spell (currently Druid Specific)

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Nature I... does kind of suck But poisoned blade is pretty decent. +1 strength to most units in the stack.

Vitalize is the main reason to use nature mana though. I think taking that away would kind of make nature magic not really worthwhile.

MagisterCultuum said:

I don't like the Trust spell. I don't like any spell that can only be used once. There needs to be a reason to try to get a unit more than one to get the promotion. I rather like moving Corindale's Peace spell to Spirit III (possibly also requiring Life III, or maybe Force III if that sphere is ever added, or possibly making it have a chance to end each war instead of always working).

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I didn't know about this. Trust is about the only spell in the game I've never actually used, so my impressions of it were based on the civilopedia entry, which mentions nothing about it being single use only.

Chaos III is nice, but I really don't like Choas II. Mutation is more OO theme than Chaos imho, and the spell detracts from Balseraph Freak UUs and the passive effect of Chaos mana. We really need to bring back Summon Chaos Maurader, which was one of the most interesting summons as it would usually betray you to the barbs. I thinking it could be nice for these to start with a permanent promotion that (like Enraged) makes the AI control them and gives them a small chance to betray you.

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I'd have to disagree with removing mutation. I love it, and I use it as the balseraphs, to mutate various things like heroes, mages, priests, and pretty much anything else that can't be upgraded from a freak, or that I just can't afford upgrading.

Valor really isn't up to being level 3 material imho. It could be ok as a level 2 spell, or even level 1 if it had a chance to wear off. I prefer the latter, as Loyalty is now useless. Law III either needs to be Unyielding Order (giving Priors something else instead) or a spell that fights demons/evil units ("Banish").

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Although I would disagree that it's not "up to" being level 3, It's not hard to argue that it's not really useful as a lv3 spell, because early in the game is where you need experience gain. Making it Law II seems like a good idea, seeing as the current law II is a summon..

Unyielding Order is perfectly suited to Law III. I wholly agree there. The current implementation of UO doesn't really make that much sense, as you have to be using a Good religion to do it.

I'm pretty sure the Calabim wouldn't have problems enforcing unyielding order. "Stop rioting or we'll eat you" generally works..

Banish, sounds like an awesome idea, but I'm not so sure it's right for law mana.

It occurs to me now, why isn't there Holy and Unholy spells. Banish would be a good holy spell. Granted, unholy is sort of alreadyt covered by entropy, but there's no really suitable equivilant for holy magic.



Too sleepy to comment on the rest. will post again tomorrow.

Domingo said:

Some cool ideas.

I think Fly would be a great level 3 Air spell. Maybe caster only, but gives them +1 move, 20% withdraw, and they can move over impassable terrain.

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This is an awesome idea and I would love to see it implemented.

actually, maybe it would make a good lv2 spell, and bump maelstrom up to lv3.... It does seem a bit destructive for a lv2 spell.

WarKirby said:

Nature I... does kind of suck But poisoned blade is pretty decent. +1 strength to most units in the stack.

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actually, I'm pretty sure that poisoned blade only works on recon units.

I'm still thinking the division between mages/conjurer and archmage/summoner wasn't such a bad idea...having two different kind of units for each level (4th and 6th) allows to have a wider range of spell. It's true, it's a little bit confusing...though it is by no mean impossible to manage!

I agree with magister's suggestions, especially when whispers about improving lichs...

By the way, i have a question, maybe it's a little off-topic and i'm sorry for that...

I tried to give to a flesh golem the ability to cast spells...I grafted into him an archmage thinking channeling III were enough to have an archmage flesh golem...It didn't work! This was in a previous version of the game, do you people know if it is possible by now?

Thanxx

I've said it before I say it again, Bring back the inquisitor.
But rather than haveing them just be an upgraded priest, Make it a "national/pratriotic"
unit. Have it get a ramdom mana from Your civ's palace(or maybe a ramdom mana not normally given to priests. Then we would have a nice upper level unit to give some of these spells to, a unit that could perform a nasty surprise summons( the reason there are so many upper level summons is so every civ has access to at least one? right?)
There would be room for civ specific custom spells (and for my next trick I will give this stack of eohien monks Spiritual Hammer!) High priest are great but limeted (and they should be) The New Inquistor should be a bit nerffed in combat, but could have affinitys?

And Banana Mana!

Warkirby,

It is interesting that I agree with your facts (or at least most of them) but have a totally different conclusion from them. I guess we disagree on a main point, though, int hat I think the summoned createures are pretty tough.

That is, specifically you say,

' With most spheres of magic, I don't advance beyond level 2. Even when I have archmages, arcane heroes, et al. Because to be frank, I think a lot of the level 3 spells are inferior.

This is primarily because so many of them are summons. The summoner trait is pretty uncommon, and I've never played as any leader using it, because I just don't really like summoning much. It gets somewhat of a meh feeling from me.

This is exacerbated farther, by the fact that most summons have synergy with their particular mana type, and are otherwise of fairly average strength. This forces you to take several mana of the same type if you want to be effective.'

There are a few aspects here that I think are important to game strategy. First, you may be a summoner. If you are, then your choices are different. Many of us play random leaders and this forces us to learn all of the styles. I think summoner is a 'solid' trait -- not the best but not bad.

I guess I look at the point that 'This forces you to take several mana of the same type if you want to be effective' differently from you. I think this is a key strategic issue. I feel that summoning can be very powerful if you decide to 'go deep' with your mana choices. This potential creates a different game element. For instance, with a few mages and archmages, a hero, and a bunch of death mana, you can summon quite a powerful army without the summoner trait.

Say you have a spell casting hero like Hemah. Then, you can get to strength 5 and dual cast. That means that each time you cast a summoning spell, you get two of the level three creature with 5 strength upgrades. With Hemah, level 5, earth, 3 earth nodes, you can have a stoneskin Hemah (assassins beware) casting two buffed earth elementals a turn. I guess the main difference between us is that iI see this as quite powerful -- these are the guys that take out or at least reduce the 'top guy' in the stack, and are especially great when you fight nasties like Demons where your elementals have a bunch of immunities. In some ways the Grigori are the best summoners -- make a bunch of adventurers into archmages, go deep in mana, and they can each dual cast!


But by 'going deep' you lose some flexibility. So you have to choose if you want to enhance your summoning or your magic flexibility. Perhaps we just fundamentally disagree on how tough summons are, I think of them as being tough especially late inthe game going agsinst strong units.

We have 55 magic spells - 18 spheres of 3 each, and two death 3 spells. Of these, if I counted correctly, there are 13 summon spells. This doesn't appear too many to me. Of these, 8 are level 3 (air, death, earth, fire, metamagic, shadow, sun, water).

I'm glad you have this choice, because in a lot of games I'm hemmed in and I don't get a lot of mana nodes. If I get one or two extra mana above palace mana, I'm usually hoping that one of them allows me a good summons if I need it and if I get a powerful summoner. So, we have to choose. I take fire to let my fireballs batter city defenses down, but it is good to have a powerful summons (fire elemental) also.

Now, I build my magic to be a good buff for a land army. I look at my buff spells and decide I like enchantemnt mana; it gives me a happiness and a really good spell. However, with enchantment I get no summons at all. This is a consequence. Or, if I have a lot of desert, so I want water mana for spring -- or I'm the elves and I don't want my forests burning. The fact that I have a third level summons helps here since at some point my 'springing' is mostly done.

Note that separating summoning and mages weakens each magic user relative to the game now. As the game works now, good magic user can provide many functions. For example, with entropy a get a good spell for army vs. army combat (rust), a solid level 2 summons (pit beast), and a strong level 3 direct reduction spell (wither). With air I get a sometimes useful enhancer (fair winds), a powerful direct damage spell (maelstorm) and a solid level three summons (air elemental). Note that this combianation makes them more powerful than can attained by a summoner alone or a mage alone.

Best wishes,

Breunor

I'm not denying that summons are powerful, they just don't appeal to me as a player, is all. I like the "sorcery" type magics, where there's a direct consequence from the spell. Summoning just seems like a roundabout way of doing things.

I'd much rather twincast two destructive spells, than two summons.

WarKirby said:

I'm not denying that summons are powerful, they just don't appeal to me as a player, is all. I like the "sorcery" type magics, where there's a direct consequence from the spell. Summoning just seems like a roundabout way of doing things.

I'd much rather twincast two destructive spells, than two summons.

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Warkirby,

Sorry I misinterpreted you. Note that you did say,

'With most spheres of magic, I don't advance beyond level 2. Even when I have archmages, arcane heroes, et al. Because to be frank, I think a lot of the level 3 spells are inferior.

This is primarily because so many of them are summons. '

When you said they were inferior, I (and I suspect some other people) felt that you thought they weren't effective. I do think they add flavor and some interesting strategy options.

Best wishes,

Breunor

Breunor said:

things

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Well said.

I think magic as it stands has an interestingly diverse array of spells and summons which provide a nice breadth of tactics while remaining for the most part well balanced and not overly complicated.