Damage types, mana nodes, disciple units, fantasy, and a suggested for affinity

[korn469]

I've been playing ffh for about the past month I guess and I really love it. It's certainly not perfect, though I know it's not nearly complete yet. I'm really looking to the changes that the BtS conversion will introduce.

So I was laying in bed this morning thinking about nothing in particular when FFH and fanatasy in general came to mind. It seems like in almost every fantasy setting that there are monsters, undead creates, angel, demons, wraiths, ghosts, whatever that are immune to normal physical attacks. I think people have suggested a promotion that works like magic resistence/resist fire/resist cold etc for normal physical damage. I think it would be a good idea to have something like that. However, if a unit had this ability, and could shrug off physical damage then I began to wonder how you would counter such a unit. What came to mind was increased use of fire, cold, lightening, holy, and unholy damages. The most logical thing it seemed was to have these magical damage types work in a very similar manner to the bronze, iron, mythril upgrade system already in the game. So I was thinking that if a civ had access to a specific mana node like fire for example then a unit would get +1 fire damage. If it had access to two mana nodes then it would get +2. If It had access to three mana nodes 3 it would get +3 (with +3 being the max). While this seems like a good start, it seemed way too overpowered, since some civs start out with mana nodes availible from their palace, and if somehow a player had three fire nodes, two entropy nodes, and a death node that all of the player's units suddenly getting +6 strength (+3 fire, +2 unholy, + 1 death) would seriously break the game's balance. However I came up with a solution. A unit can only gain access to special types of damage with a special promotion that only applies to one specific damage type.

Now maybe this suggestion simply replicates most of the effects of affinity, but I think it's a better solution. For one, I haven't seen affinity work in the game, and two this seems like it has less of a chance for abuse.

So here is what I was thinking.

Cold - possibly water nodes or less likely earth nodes
Death - obviously death nodes
Fire - obviously fire nodes
Holy - possibly life or spirit nodes
Lightening - possibly air nodes or less likely water nodes
Poison - possibly nature nodes or earth nodes
Unholy - possibly entropy or chaos nodes

Each damage type has a corresponding promotion tied to it. So if a unit has the cold damage promotion it can have up to +3 cold damage if the player has three cold producing mana nodes. Unless the unit starts out with with one of the promotions, then it should take combat four or five to enable the damage type promotions. Each priest unit (Monk, Stonewarden, Ritualist, Cultist, etc.) Would start out with one of these damage type promotions in addition to their other abilities.

So how does that sound?

 

[Chip56]

The problem with units that are immun to physikal damage is that its almost impossible to counter if you havent prepared for exactly this unit long ago.
Just think of one unit that kills your whole army of maceman because you cant inflict damage.
You go to your city screen and see you cant produce a unit that has special damage from start and any new one would need 5-6 levels to promote it with spezial damage...

Physikal immune units were a big problem in for example AOW 1. If you hadn't prepared way before one single ghost or even worse an air elemental could mean game over. Also this would make already strong mana types (fire!) even stronger.

 

[Sureshot]

i suggested physical resistant units a little while ago, the key being Resistant not Immune. +50 vs physical would be nice but hardly unstoppable.

theres such a thing as Magic Immune, but its very uncommon, so if anything had Physical Immune i'd think it would be very rare (like 1 civs national unit and one hero).

im not certain about the ease of getting non-physical damage that this system would allow (especially the amount, +3 is huge), the way its done with spells right now is nice (though more spells similar would be nice).

 

[Grey Fox]

For one thing, Cold damage is supposed to be rare (and cold resistance rare), while Fire damage is supposed to be common (while fire resistance is supposed to be common as well).

 

[korn469]

If I said or implied units immune to physical damage, I didn't mean that. I certainly meant units with a resisitance to physical damage. A 50% modifer to physical damage wouldn't be anymore overwhelming that the +100% strength availible from the combat V promotion.

A way to make it slightly more balanced is that units can get up to +3 strength, each extra point of strength requires a promotion, and the promotions would require the mana nodes to be availible. So for example, the death 1 promotion would grant +1 death damage but it requires combat 4, and one death mana node. The death 2 promotion would grant +2 death damage, but it would require death 1 and two death mana nodes. The death 3 promotion would grant +3 death damage but it would require death 2 and three death mana nodes.

Also while I understand that cold damage from a story perspective is supposed to be rare as is cold resistance, the game play fact is while cold damage is rare (I can't really think of any units that have cold damage) cold resistance is as easy to come by as any other type of resistance.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Personally I think that the ability to add affinity through promotions is a must, but I'm not really a fan of these ideas (except possibly physical damage resistance). Also, I would really prefer it if you could select what type of damage a unit's affinity grants it rather than having one standard damage type for each mana type( For example, air could grant same units extra lightning strength and other units cold strength). It seems like most affinity granting promotion would be better given only through spells.

(Now if only we could make strength values decimals, so that we could give a unit fractional affinity...)

 

[Shadius]

It might be interesting to have a special unique unit or two that has high affinity with a certain (or multiple) mana types. Like a Clan "Warrior of Bhal" unit, or somesuch (though this could be a Veil unit as well, I guess).

An idea for a unit that could utilize several types of mana might be something along the lines of an Elementalist.

I don't like the idea of giving affinities with promotions, though. It takes away the uniqueness of a lot of units, for one thing, and would just be plain overpowering. Even if you make the requirements for them very steep, you'll end up with heroes that are even more powerful than they are now. If implemented trough a spell, then maybe - but only if the effect is temporary. A semi-permanent +X strength to all your units is too much, IMO.

 

[Silverkiss]

If affinity could be granted by promotions, imagine vampires. And despair.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think that the ability for promotions to grant affinity is necessary because it would be so useful in modmods, but actually using the ability in the main mod is certainly not. The affinity granting promos should be very hard to come by, preferably through spells.

 

[kevjm]

Rather than adding say +1 fire strength, why not replace one normal strength with one fire strength? The unit wouldn't become obscenely strong then but would still mix up the type of damage the units in the game would inflict.

 

[TheJopa]

And if all units were, say, 10-15% weaker to non-usual damage types it would still be a good feat, and it would make mixed damage units stronger overall (compensated with fact they are not so usual and that they are, from time to time, completely useless, like death against non-living)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Affinity granting promotions would also be great for offensive spells, since you can add negative affinity. Something like a "Seal of Judgment" would make an interesting Law spell, one that subtracts 1 strength for each entropy (and maybe Death and Chaos) mana the units owner possesses. It would punish your enemies for their "sins" but they wouldn't suffer the penalty if they "repent," i.e., raze their evil mana nodes.

If affinity granting promotions can be obtained through means other than spells, I think it may be necessary for them to grant positive affinity in one sphere and negative in another. Negative affinity would also be an interesting side effect of of spells that add other bonuses, like a higher level of spell extension that requires a mage's attention be focused too far away from himself to be able to defend himself.

Hmm, I wonder how hard it would be to change the whole affinity mechanic so that a unit or promotion could have other bonuses besides strength scale based on the amount of manna possessed, like movement points, first strikes, or defensive bonuses.