Body 1. does Haste have to last only one turn?

[Taels]

People that say it is a pain to have to recast, just shouldn't use magic. All magic should have a chance of dissipating on its own. It takes a powerful mage to create a spell that lasts eternity.

The coolest feature of FfH shouldn't be limited only to people who like to micro.

Haste should be compatible with automation commands like Goto, and Amurite workers who've learned haste should be automatable (if anyone automates workers).

But it shouldn't be too hard to create a modmod that changes haste to last as long as there is there is a caster in the stack who can cast haste. I think. I've never created a FfH modmod, but I might try.

 

[catquiet]

But it shouldn't be too hard to create a modmod that changes haste to last as long as there is there is a caster in the stack who can cast haste. I think. I've never created a FfH modmod, but I might try.

Would it be easier to change the effect of haste to be a permanent, caster only buff? All living units on your tile get +1 move at the start of the turn.

I wonder if you could get rid of the haste and water walking spells entirely and just have those buffs be automatic for anyone with the right sphere.

 

[Taels]

Would it be easier to change the effect of haste to be a permanent, caster only buff? All living units on your tile get +1 move at the start of the turn.

I wonder if you could get rid of the haste and water walking spells entirely and just have those buffs be automatic for anyone with the right sphere.

That's a good idea. I think that only requires changing the Haste spell to grant a new promotion, Hasting.

Hasting would never expire, and would run a new script each turn (via <PyPerTurn> I suspect), which would cast the original Haste spell.

Hasting should be removed whenever the unit casts a different spell. But I'm not sure how to do that, and I think that would actually remove the Haste effect for the next turn, not the turn when the spell was cast.

 

[NeoParn]

I think Enchanted Blade is a little powerful for what it is. It should wear off after next combat. Currently you get one caster using it to enchant everyone. That would make the spell a bit more widely used. I think the same thing for spells like courage and Spiritual hammer.
Maybe at least a chance of expire after the next combat.

People that say it is a pain to have to recast, just shouldn't use magic. All magic should have a chance of dissipating on its own. It takes a powerful mage to create a spell that lasts eternity.

Haste should stay on as long as the adept is part of the stack.

Both seem to make sense to me. Why not just say all T1 spells either:
(A) Need maintenance (Winds, Haste);
(B) Have a chance of wearing of any given turn its used (Enchanted Blade after combat).

It makes low level magic (more or less) evenly unreliable/caster dependant. Ideally wear-off chance would be inverse to XP; eventually becoming permanent, (or the dubious 99.9%). After all, when they have 100 or 150 XP they are a pretty powerful magi.

 

[ZhugeTien]

I have never had much complaint about the haste spell, but then I micromanage like a crazed fiend. As far as how to make it less painful for those who don't like the current mechanics:
- The Fair Winds spell affects naval craft, the very slowest of which have 2 base speed. Remember also that coasts and oceans do not have roads! The extra move doesn't proportionally increase their movement nearly as much as Haste does for land units, so the idea of Haste functioning similarly seems a bit flawed.
- Making all tier I spells wear off with time goes against the balances of certain "weaker" or "less useful" tier I spells such as Loyalty, Courage, Enchanted Blade, and such. They are permanent because they do not give effects that are similar to what Haste does.

I think the best "fix" for this problem is one that can be accomplished by the player. Most of my Amurite kingdoms by the time Govannon is running about teaching all units Haste have had perhaps a dozen workers. After they all learn haste, most of the core kingdom has been developed, and I can stack them up in pairs or fours, leaving one summoned skeleton skipping turn every turn on the tile to bring the cursor automatically to that location, where I activate one of the workers, cast haste, and continue to work. As far as automove goes, it can be somewhat annoying, but moving units with the keypad over roads, one gets two or three extra squares. That justifies any micromanagement for me personally, and if it doesn't, then take the time to design a modmod for yourself that will allow Haste to work as you like.

This game is the creation of the team, and while I know they value our input, things such as this only make more work for them, particularly when not everyone is agreeing on the issue. Regardless, we'll see what action (if any) they take. I forsee Magister's mod (once he works out the kinks and possibly releases it to the rest of us) as being quite popular in certain circles, just as Sureshot's various multiplayer adaptations have been.

 

[xienwolf]

Ok, let's fight, on the plains, I get haste, you get EB.

I attack, probably lose, almost as probably win. If I win, I then move back and get a chance to heal. So, let's say you win 2, I win 1. Now you have 2 weak units, I have 1. But you cannot reach mine. Now I follow you, keeping you from being able to stop & heal, while my new champ & yours race to the scene. Guess who gets there first?

Absurd examples aside, my point was that there are 15 ways I can get 20% strength. Only 2 to get +1 move. Should we redo the promotions to reverse that?

Any way you change haste, except the newly proposed 'while in the stack with the mage' means you can haste the majority of your civ with 1 or 2 adepts. THAT is overpowered. (and the while caster is in the stack, with proviso they do not cast anything else, could be a coding nightmare).

And if haste on every unit wasn't so strong, this topic never would have started because you simply wouldn't care and would not know it takes a little micromanaging.

Quickest solution, for coding in, is probably a hotkey for the spell so you can just press 'h' when it auto selects an adept and they will cast Haste if able.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

There is a major difference between a haste that doesn't wear off (even doesn't wear off until next combat) and a haste that is auto-cast or cast every turn. Adepts can only move two spaces max, so they slow down mobility promoted recon and cavalry, socavalry cannot go max movement (3 or 4 + haste) every turn. This limits the max speed you can get... unless you set up a "pony express" relay type system, I guess.
If it didn't wear off, the movement of the caster would be irrelevant, and the cavalry could move max distance every turn.

(And that is besides the fact that one adept could haste many stacks before they needed re-hasting)

An auto cast for some spells has been on the wish list for awhile, as it would indeed be nice. You're welcome to make the case to Kael that it is a higher priority than whatever he wants to work on next.

Personally, I don't worry about using haste unless it is an emergency situation in which case it is worth the micro. Otherwise I'll just tell my stack to move to where I want and forget about them until they get there. Not optimal power, but optimal fun.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

There is a problem with an auto-cast implementation, as well, I suspect. When you qeue (sp?) up moves, on the next turn you move the units without orders first. So if you wanted your army to be hasted, you would still have to hit skip turn on those units until the auto-haste adept was triggered--not much better than selecting that unit and doing it yourself.

Otoh, if the spell was auto cast before you got a chance to move units (saving youthe trouble to skipping turn until the auto-cast triggered) then the unit would waste his spell casting sometimes when you didn't want to, if you wanted DoB instead.

It might still be good for moving stacks, provided it triggered the auto-cast haste before the stack moved, (since I doubt the auto-moving stack would re-check it's move points after casting), but it wouldn't be a perfect solution.

 

[eerr]

haste should scale by mana, if you have a certain amount it becomes less likely to wear off
(at 6 becomes permanent?, +20% for each over 1)

 

[Humakty]

I wonder if people wanting 'less micro' doesn't in fact want 'more firemages'...

 

[Roghar]

using a wearing mechanism isn't really any use unless it is calculated bys tack rather than by unit. As soon as one unit in your stack slows down the movement of the stack slows. There is no benefit in having the others hasted

 

[snarko]

What if there was a button for doing the auto casting (for all units)? If you want to cast something else select the unit and do so. When you're done with that click the auto cast button and all units set to auto cast something does. It's not perfect but I don't think perfect is possible in this case.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

That would be cool, though more complex to create.

 

[xienwolf]

Only way I can see to implement that is to add some thirty to the GUI (a spell advisor screen?) with a button for each spell that when clicked will select all casters (globally) and attempt to cast that spell.

This could be done easier by just grouping your haste adepts (select all the adepts, press CTRL + 1, then at the start of each turn press 1, click haste, then press ENTER)

 

[Taels]

How about this?

Add new "Autocasting X" promotions and a new "Autocast" command to casters.

To start autocasting, the player would click the autocast command, which would add a "Waiting to autocast" promotion. When a unit with that promotion cast an autocastable spell, the "waiting" promotion would be replaced with "Autocasting X".

The script to autocast could run at the start of each turn, or when a button is clicked, whatever works out best.

 

[it-ogo]

Permanent haste worth 3-d level spell.

Autocasting is a long-term blue dream... This variant is better then nothing at least. Further: autocasting mode makes caster to cast all available buffs (according to priority list) in the beginning of turn if possible and in the end of turn if possible.

 

[Sircam]

Haste is a very useful spell and casting it every turn IMHO is correct. Allowing it to wear off a few more turns after is a very powerful solution. I do not think that activate it every turn is a painful operation, it is only a question of laziness

 

[Taels]

It is only a question of laziness

Or, in my case, carpal tunnel syndrome. Repeatedly casting haste on dozens of units every turn is not good for ones median nerve.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Lazy? Look, this is a game, not real life, we want to have fun and enjoy ourselves.

As for micro, it's inevitable, especially Amurites. They have so much access to magic, for combat, summoning, buffing, TERRAFORMING (the intense micro that pays off), and then there's Govannon teaching raise skeleton to all the workers and raise bones to their dogs. It's micro, but if you have that many decision or commands to make, it's inevitable. Permenant would be overpowered.

And if you like mobility so much, play Hippus.

 

[Cuteunit]

Any way you change haste, except the newly proposed 'while in the stack with the mage' means you can haste the majority of your civ with 1 or 2 adepts. THAT is overpowered. (and the while caster is in the stack, with proviso they do not cast anything else, could be a coding nightmare).

That's why I said it should endure as long as the adept is part of the stack. If you could just throw it on a unit once and it lasted forever nomatter where it went, that would of course be cheap.

It would be funny stacking adepts with my workers keeping them hasted... and so so right... *imagining the arcane corps of engineers again*