Design: Spells

[Kael]

I also want this. There is a system for mana-based spellcasting someone posted on the CivFanatics forum - it has mana as a global resource like gold, and your mages charge up from the pool in cities, using their individual store to cast spells. Its pretty neat, I'm hoping to be able to get it to work with FFh.. although from what I have seen so far it would require so much work that it would probably end up not being worth it.

The flaw of mana based systems is in getting the AI to understand them. Its okay if a ai unit casts a fireball every turn, even if he doesnt use them. But when you have to manage a limited resource it becomes more critical. Hard enough to tell the ai when it should cast a ring of flames, even harder to tell it when it should wait three turns and use the mana then.

 

[Yoshi2942]

Actually, when I mentioned a change to the magic system - I wasn't thinking MoM style at all (though I loved that game), instead I was thinking of a more freeform spell selection..

Basically, get rid of upgrading to Mage/Summoner whatever.

Each Faction gets one of the types of spellcasters -- Balseraphs might get summoners and someone else would get Mages.. and such..

Then you train your magic-user at the mages guild. Starts out lvl 1, and maybe some experience bonus based upon things (like if your leader is one who is into magic, then maybe all of your spellcasters get some experience.. if you have a bunch of mana nodes, then extra exp.. stuff like this).

Then you buy upgrades for the magic user.. say your newly trained mage has 5 exp -- so can upgrade to level 3. first choice, you get to choose amongst lvl 1 spells which you have the correct mana for or you can choose extension or another upgrade, level 2 same thing... Basically you could create spells for each school of magic, say you have 5 for each, and then decide what level the character needs to be for each spell.. maybe levels 1,3,5,7,9 allow access to the next tier of spells? something like that.

So instead of getting spells based upon a matrix, it would be more free form. And in order to get the spell - make it so that the unit has to be at one of your cities with a mages guild in order to choose a spell promotion.

But as I mentioned earlier - I doubt it will be implemented. HUGE job, and I have no idea how well the AI would perform at this.. they do leave their mages in the cities most of the time, so that probably isn't a big deal, but selecting the correct spells? I suppose the spells could be given weights and/or flavors to help.

 

[gravitygroove]

Being a fan of the mind tree, i find that i often get hosed on domination fails against very low lvl attempts (1-2 macemen/pikeman/longbowmen) and im very confused by this.


I read the math you use to calculate it, but is there any chance there could be an odd calc in the game for SPELL resists like there is the Combat odds?

Spell resist odd's would allow me the same level of tact in my gameplay that normally have in combat and gauging battles.

 

[loki1232]

Being a fan of the mind tree, i find that i often get hosed on domination fails against very low lvl attempts (1-2 macemen/pikeman/longbowmen) and im very confused by this.


I read the math you use to calculate it, but is there any chance there could be an odd calc in the game for SPELL resists like there is the Combat odds?

Spell resist odd's would allow me the same level of tact in my gameplay that normally have in combat and gauging battles.

yes this is on our wanted list.

I personally think that domination should be changed a little to make it more attractive--if it fails you only lose the caster one out of like 6 times, based on the relative unit levels.

 

[c.fe]

The flaw of mana based systems is in getting the AI to understand them. Its okay if a ai unit casts a fireball every turn, even if he doesnt use them. But when you have to manage a limited resource it becomes more critical. Hard enough to tell the ai when it should cast a ring of flames, even harder to tell it when it should wait three turns and use the mana then.

Is it really that difficult? Just choose the spell as you would do it now, if you have enough mana cast it, else wait. Of course that wouldn't be optimal but currently it isn't optimal either.

 

[Kael]

Is it really that difficult? Just choose the spell as you would do it now, if you have enough mana cast it, else wait. Of course that wouldn't be optimal but currently it isn't optimal either.

The flaw is in moving closer to or away from appropriate decisions. And you may be thinking in terms of one units. Suppose the Ai has 12 spellcasters spread about his empire, some are near battles, some are by units to buff, etc. But the AI only has enough mana to cast 6 spells. How does it decide which 6 to cast?

In general I think that adding a common mana resource is a bad idea (I suspect that most of the desire for it is just in remeberence of Master of Magic, which was a brillant game). Its complexity for no real benifit. But even if I agreed that it was better its still going to increase the gap between human and AI players.

At some point an idea can be so good that it is worth the additional AI/player gap. It just depends on how good the idea is, and how much difference it will make in the gap. Shared mana resource has a very low "fun" rating, and a pretty significant gap.

 

[Sureshot]

if i remember correctly, in master of mana the empire mana was used only for tower spells, actual mage units had their own mana, as did heroes.. tower spells were usually for summoning permanent summons or ritual type spells.

might be neat to make a special yield value, and let mana nodes give plenty of that yield type, and then allow rituals to be rushed or produced with this new mana yield type. then you could add it to the slider so you can devote your commerce to it as well. could make the summons that sheaim get use this yield type as well

but in many ways beakers are like the mana pool of Master of mana.. might be interesting to let people build up beakers and have a pool of it when you choose no tech to research, have mana nodes give beaker yields, and use beakers to build rituals, and add a lot more repeatable rituals like special perma-summons and cool effects.

 

[c.fe]

if i remember correctly, in master of mana the empire mana was used only for tower spells, actual mage units had their own mana, as did heroes.. tower spells were usually for summoning permanent summons or ritual type spells.

Right, I always thought of mana for individual units. This would allow to differentiate the magic users (if there is a need for this) because units could have different mana and different mana regeneration.
Sure, in my my modcomp there is a common mana yield, too. But that is mainly used for unit upkeep (And there is a spell that transforms "global mana" to "local mana" but that wasn't my point).

but in many ways beakers are like the mana pool of Master of mana.. might be interesting to let people build up beakers and have a pool of it when you choose no tech to research, have mana nodes give beaker yields, and use beakers to build rituals, and add a lot more repeatable rituals like special perma-summons and cool effects.

That is an interesting idea - perhaps summons could use beakers for upkeep as summoners a busy sustaining the summons and can't research anymore.

 

[Yoshi2942]

Actually, now that I think about it - the way that MoM got around the AI problems was in how the casting was done. There was no waiting. Or rather - you didn't HAVE to wait, even if you didn't have the mana. Just choose a spell, and when the mana was accumulated --> it would cast. The AI would just look at the situation, look at its spell options, decide if it wanted to cast a spell, and select to cast it. Once enough mana had been sunk into the spell - it would cast.

I dunno whether *I* would want this mod to become MoM2, or not, because there are a lot of other things about MoM which made that game fun for me --> The custom Leader screen was great. The random access to spells was great. The jumping back and forth between the two diminsions was great. All things which would likely be difficult to implement into FFH.

 

[Sureshot]

Age of Wonders was pretty much a good MoM2 game

 

[Yoshi2942]

Can't remember if I played that one or not. I do remember wasting 100's of hours playing MoM though.

 

[Sureshot]

Age of Wonders was like a cross between MoM and Heroes of might and magic, really fun as it had the best of both.. been trying to find it again but no luck so far

 

[Adrogans]

Yeah, I still have a copy of both AoW I and II. Those were fun.

 

[Chip56]

Yeah, I still have a copy of both AoW I and II. Those were fun.

I agree.
Altough AOW was better balanced than AOW2 (or even worse AOW SM)

 

[Adrogans]

Yeah I agree, but still enjoyed them.

 

[Dark Russell]

Without fully seeing the newer magic in "Fire" (and not having enough time to browse this whole thread) here are a few spell ideas:

Dimentional Sorcery:
L2 - Longdoor = teleports the caster (caster lvl +1) squares in any direction
L3 - Mass longdoor = Teleports caster's stack (2 + Spell extention rank) squares in any direction
L2 (3?) - Shifty Defence = Makes caster or target invisible (hidden) until they attack or the spell is dispelled

Dimentional Summoning:
L2 (3?) - Summon Dimentional Shambler

Mind Summoning:
L2 - Summon Mind Stone = Can see all units within (2 + Spell extention) squares of caster. Perminent until dispelled or caster moves. Doesn't work on undead.
L3 - Monsters from the Id = When cast on an enemy stack, units must resist or flee one square in random direction from mental horrors. {good for breaking up those stacks of doom}

Water Divine:
L2 - Well of Life = +3 Health as long as unit stays in the city. (also maybe +10% healing rate)

Air (All):
L1 - Smother = Reduces fire to smoke or smoke to nothing (50% chance or something)
L1 - Fan Flame = Turns smoke to flame (50% chance or something)

Air Sorcery:
L2 - Air walking = Makes all terrain 1 MP. Can pass over impassable terrain. Caster only.

Fire or Lightning (All):
L1 - Spark - Creates smoke in woods (50% chance or something)

Fire Sorcery:
L2 - Firebolt = As Fireball but no collateral damage. Firebolt has the Marksman ability and is 3. (fireballs are great but they ruin the fun of combat for me)


That's all for now. I have to say how much I love the spell system in FFH2!! The only drawback I see is the ability to have tons of mages with fireballs or an Amurite army all able to summon skelletons. While it is fun the first time you completly obliterate your foes, the replayability is nil for me.

Anyhow, congrats on the release of "Fire". It has been the best Civ experience for me so far!!!

 

[Uberness]

Add Terraforming to earth and/or water couple of ideas

Earth lvl 1 Create Hill out of mountain, or create hill out of flatland
Earth lvl 1 Reverse Create flatland out of hill and hill out of mountain

Water 2+ Create a ice square for 2-4 turns on target water square, any ships on target square can not move until gone

 

[Sureshot]

Add Terraforming to earth and/or water couple of ideas

Earth lvl 1 Create Hill out of mountain, or create hill out of flatland
Earth lvl 1 Reverse Create flatland out of hill and hill out of mountain

Water 2+ Create a ice square for 2-4 turns on target water square, any ships on target square can not move until gone

for my modmod of this mod i made a Raise Earth spell that turns water to flatlands, flatlands to hills, hills to mountains; and changed tsunami to turn mountains to hills, hill to flatlands, flatlands to water; also a spell that turns grassland to plains; and one that turns desert to ice and plains to tundra heh

 

[kenken244]

a possible air/water spell:
doldrums: only usable at sea. Creates a area around the caster dependent on its spell extension level that makes all ships move only 1 space per turn, goes away after a few turns

 

[kenken244]

maybe there should be a divine spell that randomly spreads a random religion to a random city but moire likely to be the religion of the preist

EDIT: woo hoo 500th post!