Charm Person too powerful?

[aswfreak12]

I loooooove this spell. Two adepts with it make my city invulnerable to attack to any stack, dun matter what size. But I cant help but feeling guilty when I use it. Sure my lands are open for pillaging, but even then I can sit and make a rival SoD and rape the one ive charmed. The effect lasts almost forever in a normal game. Does anyone feel this also?

 

[Humakty]

Blinding light, the spell empyrean units start with is also awesome : you stop stacks from moving for three turns, you can bring along canon/catapults to mass kill.
Charm is really nasty, sheïam can have funny armies.(succubus)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, charmed can be dispelled with the choas II sorcery spell, so I don't feel it is so bad. I like the Sun II Sorcery's ability to immobilize units for 3 turns too. However, that brings up the other spell with the immobilizing effect: Nature III Divine, Entangle. It only immobilized for one turn although it is a higher level spell. Also, that means it ends at the end of your turn, before the unit effected would be able to move anyway; thus is it complely useless. (I just edited it to immobilize for a number of turns based on how much nature mana you have and the type of terrain the unit effected is on, but I haven't tested it yet)

 

[aswfreak12]

Yeah, but I usually do comp stomps, and the AI has issues with charm person. After I charm they just wander away or sit around, and the effect almost never goes away, and the computer fails to utilized dispells and magic resistance on high level units.

So not only are they neutralized, they end up out of your borders anyways,leaving towns, farms, and copper/iron mines unmolested. If the comp saw opprotunity theyd take those out so my economy would at least take a hit or my production would come to a grinding halt, stopping the masses that I make to take out their SoD.

 

[rusty217]

Isn't charm person only supposed to affect a single unit?

I thought it affecting the whole stack was just a bug?

 

[aswfreak12]

I dun know if it is a bug or not, but when its casted it hits an entire stack except for the units that resist it. Which is only about 3 or 4, then you just cast it with another adept....

 

[rusty217]

I dun know if it is a bug or not, but when its casted it hits an entire stack except for the units that resist it. Which is only about 3 or 4, then you just cast it with another adept....

Well it shyould be bug if an adept level spell can prevent a whole stack from attacking....

In the changelog for the next version it says fear etc.. for whole stack bug was fixed maybe this is related???

 

[Cuteunit]

If Charm Person didnt impact whole stacks it would be as worthless and crap as any number of the other spells in FFH.

They just need to set the AI to recognize the fact it's got a charm on the unit and go a-pillaging instead. Versus a human player, that's what they'll do anyways.. and it's actually far worse for you to endure that than have some reallly brainless AI throwing themselves against your +80% city defenses for free exp all the time.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

It's hard to program a CIV4 AI as it is, I believe it is virtually impossible for an AI that can handle the complexity that is magic. The best you can do is program an AI to execute a specific civ/religion strategy, hardcoded.

Reminds me of a game I liked: "Magic and Mayhem". It's an isometric hack-and-slash where you try to maintain territorial control with mana nodes while you seek to destroy your enemy wizards with a huge variety of spells. It's an intense battle of wits, and unfortunately, the diversity of effects make AI programming impossible.

 

[rusty217]

If Charm Person didnt impact whole stacks it would be as worthless and crap as any number of the other spells in FFH.

Well at the moment i think it is quite overpowered for an adept level spell, if you have the right kind of mana you can rush to knowledge of the ether and spam adepts, if you put adepts on important improvements aswell as the cities then you can never be destroyed?

Should an adept spell really be powerful enough to ensure survival for the entire game??

The only thing really capable of countering a charming adept rush would be a faster rush or invisibility.
So if your unlucky with the first that means a long time before the next chance....
And it would be possible for the adept person to uncover invisible units eventually anyway.....

Maybe if the spell was made unresistable, but moved to archmages?
The limit to number of units able to use it would prevent every tile in your civilization being in range of a charm person unit. And if it was unresistable it would be more powerful when used, although maybe overpowered if unresistable??

 

[Goodgimp]

The problem I have with Charm Person is a combination of the frequency it can be used, the length of duration, and the resist chance. Tweaking any of the above would bring it more in line.

For a simple solution, why not just have Charm Person effect a maximum of 3 units? That way, in order to immobilize and entire stack for several turns, you'd need to stock up on a lot of Mind adepts and have them in the right area.

 

[Deon]

This should be a bug. And single-targeted charm by adept is still strong enough, because it can disarm enemy heroes and most powerful units.

 

[Cuteunit]

it never lands on heroes.

 

[Deon]

because of magic resistance I guess the HERO promotion gives. I'll test it.

 

[xienwolf]

It can only cripple units with a move score of 1, or possibly 2 if surrounded by hard to move terrain. Anything that can move 2 spaces will kill the adept easily.

 

[Goodgimp]

It can only cripple units with a move score of 1, or possibly 2 if surrounded by hard to move terrain. Anything that can move 2 spaces will kill the adept easily.

For the AI, though, it's extremely effective negating entire assaults with one lowly adept. The AI will typically be moving in a stack or two, which will include 1-move units (catapults, melee units, etc). One level 1 adept can hold off the entire assault almost single-handedly (assuming there's a couple defenders in the city to defend against the stray resists). Not only that, but the assault is typically crippled long-term, as the Charm lasts several turns and can be recast every one.

And that's just one adept...

 

[Tyrs]

Would it be possible to have a spell level with the caster? or base it off what level of Sorcery they have? Then you could have an adepts charm affect two units at the most, a mage's would affect four and an archmage could get the awesomeness we have now. So it's still a useful level one spell, but not so insane. I just recently saved my capital from a horde of Dovellio with a single adepts. I just kept them at bay with charm until I got to sorcery and turned my adept into wizards, then fireballed them to ashes(amurites).

 

[Cuteunit]

It's more a problem with the AI than with the spell. The AI just isnt making that " if unable to attack city, go pillage something" distinction like a player does.

 

[Goodgimp]

I've seen the AI pillage like a madman once it is charmed, but that still leaves yourself virtually immune to taking military losses. In the last coop MP game I played, my friend held off a couple gigantic stacks with an adept and a handful of defenders. He'd simply charm the stacks, then use a couple cavalry to pick them off. They could heal up without fear of retaliation, then renew the assault.

A handful of cavalry and an adept held off (and ultimately destroyed) a force about 8 times it's size.

 

[Deon]

Well it looks like it's really too powerful for lvl1 spell... Because in fact what does it do? Mass-hypnose of huge armies, destroy the will of the thousands raging warriors with just 1 man... Looks like an archmage spell.