Design: Spells

[loki1232]

Sidar Divine Spells:
1. Imprison Spirit- Sacrifice a unit of level 5 or greater. Target wonder in a city has it's effects doubled until this spell is used again for another wonder int he same city.
2. Change to Spirit- Sacrifice a unit of level 4 or greater. Target city enters a golden age. Multiple spells don't stack in one city. Hero's sacrificed this way give golden ages for each city on the continent.
3. Pray to god- Nothing

 

[Lunargent]

Alternates for Dimensional Sphere-

Divine1:Remove Unit. Makes a random unit in the target square vanish for 5-10 turns. Unit will re-appear when the duration is up. Usefull for weakening stacks.
Divine2:Remove Land. Makes the target square no longer effectively exist for the duration. Units entering the square from one side appear on the opposite side, only using one movement point. Towns can no longer work the square. Lasts 5-10 turns or until dispelled. Cannot be cast in or on a city.
Divine3:Remove Reality. Creates a magical hole in space-time. Units in the square are randomly either destroyed, teleported to a random square on the map, or held in stasis outside of time for 5-10 turns. All units in all adjecent squares have a 50% chance of being sucked into the rift each turn. Lasts 5-10 turns or until dispelled. cannot be cast in or on a city.

 

[Lunargent]

Earth Sphere-

Divine1-CaltropsEmpowers the ground to attack enemies that walk upon it. The ground grows spiky protrusions that damage the feet of those who walk over it.

Divine2-CatapultCauses seige damage or collateral damage as would a catapult without the need for one.

Divine3-Stoneskin. Each unit in the target square gains the Stoneskin promotion, which absorbs 100% of its health in damage before being removed.

 

[loki1232]

Alternates for Dimensional Sphere-

Divine1:Remove Unit. Makes a random unit in the target square vanish for 5-10 turns. Unit will re-appear when the duration is up. Usefull for weakening stacks.
Divine2:Remove Land. Makes the target square no longer effectively exist for the duration. Units entering the square from one side appear on the opposite side, only using one movement point. Towns can no longer work the square. Lasts 5-10 turns or until dispelled. Cannot be cast in or on a city.
Divine3:Remove Reality. Creates a magical hole in space-time. Units in the square are randomly either destroyed, teleported to a random square on the map, or held in stasis outside of time for 5-10 turns. All units in all adjecent squares have a 50% chance of being sucked into the rift each turn. Lasts 5-10 turns or until dispelled. cannot be cast in or on a city.

I love these. maybe have remove unit remove 2 untis instead, and make these into the divine spells. Also, what does remove land do if there are units on the square?

 

[Lunargent]

It would have the same effect as the divine1 version- the unit vanishes for the duration of the spell. I see it as a seige spell. You can get your units to the city faster, and the target city can no longer work the improvement, which means you can deny it to them without having to destroy it and rebuild it later, good for fast seiges where you plan on keeping the city.

The chance to destroy a unit in the divine3 version would be very small-1-5%, otherwise it's too powerfull. It's a very chaotic spell, I think it would be good for disrupting invading SoDs or closing off choke points.

 

[loki1232]

How about div III doesn't destory any units, the ones it would destroy are sent to random squares in hell.

 

[Lunargent]

But what if hell hasn't been unlocked yet? Would it matter even? I still don't understand where hell is supposed to be in game. Wilderness gives one place for it to show up, but before I came up with that idea you are left with switching to an entirely new map (tedious), or somehow expanding the existing map (weird on a globe), or replacing a starting civ and having its land unaccessable by force-feild .

If it doesn't matter about hell, then sending the 'destroyed' ones there is a good idea.

 

[loki1232]

But what if hell hasn't been unlocked yet? Would it matter even? I still don't understand where hell is supposed to be in game. Wilderness gives one place for it to show up, but before I came up with that idea you are left with switching to an entirely new map (tedious), or somehow expanding the existing map (weird on a globe), or replacing a starting civ and having its land unaccessable by force-feild .

If it doesn't matter about hell, then sending the 'destroyed' ones there is a good idea.

I'm not sure exactly how hell will work, but the way i see it you won't get a level 3 divine spell until the en of the game, and hell is unlocked in the middle.

 

[Kael]

Hell should be a seperate map with the same dimensions as the main map. And if units get banished to hell before the portals are opened to hell..... well then its just going to really suck to be then. Or maybe the player will be able to take an outpost there and hold it until his civ is able to get to it.

 

[loki1232]

Body Divine I: Flesh Sheild. Creates a defensive unit with its strength based on the total strength of each unit in its stack. Caster dies.

 

[Kael]

Body Divine I: Flesh Sheild. Creates a defensive unit with its strength based on the total strength of each unit in its stack. Caster dies.

I first read this as Bovine I: Flesh Shield. I thought you had created a new cow sphere.

 

[loki1232]

I first read this as Bovine I: Flesh Shield. I thought you had created a new cow sphere.

Maybe we can have a new cow unit type?

 

[Corlindale]

There seems to be quite a few people complaining about the lack of a cure disease spell for the veil. I agree that cure disease is not particularly in character for the veil religion, but perhaps they could have something which accomplished the same at a greater cost. I was thinking along the lines of something like this:

Rite of Transfer:

Moves all negative conditions from one unit to another. Kills the caster.

It would be too costly for use on your regular units, who would have to put up with disease, but would allow you to heal important high-lvl units like Rosier the Fallen.
Don't know which sphere it should be.

 

[Kael]

There seems to be quite a few people complaining about the lack of a cure disease spell for the veil. I agree that cure disease is not particularly in character for the veil religion, but perhaps they could have something which accomplished the same at a greater cost. I was thinking along the lines of something like this:

Rite of Transfer:

Moves all negative conditions from one unit to another. Kills the caster.

It would be too costly for use on your regular units, who would have to put up with disease, but would allow you to heal important high-lvl units like Rosier the Fallen.
Don't know which sphere it should be.

What if we allowed them to buy Life 1 (cure disease) on level up. They wouldn't get it for free like the other priests, but players would have the option of earning it if they were willing to spend the level up for it.

 

[Corlindale]

I guess that would work, but I still don't think it fits the veil to be curing disease. The veil should really be the example of disease being a two-edged sword. They use it to weaken their enemies, but also suffer from it themselves to some extent.

 

[Lunargent]

I think a more thematic solution would be to give the Veil units access to an "undead" promotion. (the unit is ritualistically murdered, and its soul stored in a phylactery)This promotion would make the unit immune to disease, but still allow it to carry it if it has it. The unit loses a promotion, but a player now has the option to use disease to maximum effect if he's carefull with his units.

I think it would be also cool if these undead units, when slain, rose again as strength 3 skeletons a random number of turns later.

Oh.....and if the player ever switches religions from the Veil at a later time, or adopts free religion, all undead units abandon them, or turn into dust.

 

[loki1232]

What if we allowed them to buy Life 1 (cure disease) on level up. They wouldn't get it for free like the other priests, but players would have the option of earning it if they were willing to spend the level up for it.

I like this idea most.

 

[Lunargent]

After thinking about it for a while, the problem I see with only giving ashen priests the ability to heal disease with a promotion is that it makes them weaker than all other priests without any compensating strength.

Another problem is that it forces them to cleanse the disease that they are using as a weapon from their units. Why have the ability to spread disease if you need to keep removing it from your own units?

A general ability for their units to be more disease resistant either via the undeath promotion I proposed or some other promotion available with a death mana node would allow the veil to use disease without having to remove it from their units that they are trying to spread it with.

Also, I think it would be a good idea if the health of cities with a diseased unit stationed there was lowered by some amount. One per unit might be too much, but one for any number of units might work.

In general, I think that the Veil should use the disease it spreads to its advantage, not try to spread it with one hand, and fight it with the other.

 

[Kael]

After thinking about it for a while, the problem I see with only giving ashen priests the ability to heal disease with a promotion is that it makes them weaker than all other priests without any compensating strength.

Another problem is that it forces them to cleanse the disease that they are using as a weapon from their units. Why have the ability to spread disease if you need to keep removing it from your own units?

A general ability for their units to be more disease resistant either via the undeath promotion I proposed or some other promotion available with a death mana node would allow the veil to use disease without having to remove it from their units that they are trying to spread it with.

Also, I think it would be a good idea if the health of cities with a diseased unit stationed there was lowered by some amount. One per unit might be too much, but one for any number of units might work.

In general, I think that the Veil should use the disease it spreads to its advantage, not try to spread it with one hand, and fight it with the other.

Yeah, Im on the fence about this one. I cant find a clean solution I like. The veil uses undead, but it doesn't want to make everyone undead. And Im not sold on the idea of allowing them to buy the cure disease ability either. I went ahead and made Rosier immune to disease, which should help.

 

[Kael]

Added Transmutation- new Divine Earth 1 spell.