Design: Spells

[AndrewDJ]

A couple thoughts on air spells:

Tornado and Thunderstorm should also destroy improvements in the tiles they affect.

For a Sorcery I air spell, I offer the following suggestions:

1. North Wind: Changes plains and grasslands into tundra
2. Fair Winds: When cast on a stack of ships, gives it +1 move for x turns.
3. Becalm: When cast on a stack of ships, prevents them from moving for x turns.

A suggestion for an Air Divine spell for the Overlords:

1. Whispering Winds: Target is driven mad by voices only it can hear, becomes a barb. Doesn't affect golems, demons, or undead.
2. Poisonous Fog: Caster is surrounded by a bank of fog that weakens enemies that enter it

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Summoner creatures are awesome. how about giving Wraiths disease spreading? It'd diferentiate them a bit more, and hits the theme. Knock the str down a point to compensate if need be.

Also, since inquisitors are much harder to come by now, I think inquisition ability should not sacrifice them. But instead it could take 3 or so turns to take effect or cause more unhappiness to mitigate a free casting.

 

[Kael]

Summoner creatures are awesome. how about giving Wraiths disease spreading? It'd diferentiate them a bit more, and hits the theme. Knock the str down a point to compensate if need be.

We have enough disease causing stuff already, I hate to add anymore.

Also, since inquisitors are much harder to come by now, I think inquisition ability should not sacrifice them. But instead it could take 3 or so turns to take effect or cause more unhappiness to mitigate a free casting.

Inquistion shouldnt kill the caster, did it kill one for you?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Well, no, actually, I just assumed it did. I didn't try it too hard, but I think the option was grayed out, is it in now?

 

[H.GrenadeFrenzy]

Aquisition Spell Sphere: Theft magic everything from buildings, units resources, maybe even wonders..........hypothetically very dangerous sphere maybee bonuses for theft of somekind.......I dunno.......just come to me...But it could cause war and bad relations with other civs for sure........man will the other players hate this or thank me.........well here it goes.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Hello,

I cant remember if this is where i saw the discussion about what mana nodes should do when they get destroyed, and i couldent find a mana nodes thread, so ill just post in here (its still relative... i hope...)

If a mana node is destroyed, either by pillaging, or to change what mana type the player is getting, the node temoparily disapears, and in its place a "rift" resource appears.
This rift is a one way passage from hell, that allows barbarian deamons into the realworld, but nothing from the real world can go to hell.
the only way a player can close a rift is by sacrificing a deamon summoner / conjourer on top to repair the rift, bringing back the mana resource to use again.

This idea, i think, will stop players from 'cheating' and mana swapping to gain different free spell spheres for their new adepts, as there is a big cost for doing so. However, it could also be good for free EXP, just sit your unit next to it and wait for the deamons to come...

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Hello,

I cant remember if this is where i saw the discussion about what mana nodes should do when they get destroyed, and i couldent find a mana nodes thread, so ill just post in here (its still relative... i hope...)

If a mana node is destroyed, either by pillaging, or to change what mana type the player is getting, the node temoparily disapears, and in its place a "rift" resource appears.
This rift is a one way passage from hell, that allows barbarian deamons into the realworld, but nothing from the real world can go to hell.
the only way a player can close a rift is by sacrificing a deamon summoner / conjourer on top to repair the rift, bringing back the mana resource to use again.

This idea, i think, will stop players from 'cheating' and mana swapping to gain different free spell spheres for their new adepts, as there is a big cost for doing so. However, it could also be good for free EXP, just sit your unit next to it and wait for the deamons to come...

I half like that, but for two things:
1-Some raider jerk is gonna sneak next to my cities and pillage the mana, then I'm gonna have demons attacking them.
2-You can't really blame players for wanting to swap around mana, at least at this point, when there are mid-late game wonders that give free mana which might duplicate what they already have, i.e, be a second death or fourth fire.

 

[H.GrenadeFrenzy]

Sphere Sun
Divine oneerfect Sunlight/the plants grown in square double production until dispelled by a Metamagic spell of some kind.....otherwise permanent.
Divine two: Fair Weather:Same as Perfect Sunlight except effects chosen square and surrounding squares and has a chance to produce a new plant resource 5% to 20%chance

 

[kevjm]

Dimensional Shuffle (dimension 3, sorcery):
Randomly shuffles the promotions and attributes in the targeted stack (Exception for spellcasters). Can only be cast on enemy stacks.

Planal Rift (dimension 3, Divine):
Summons a number of barbarian demons, the power of which depend (if feasible) on the other known spells of the caster. For example, Dimension + Death will sommon a number of death 3 summons.
On casting this spell, the unit will either be consumed (die) or lose the ability to cast this spell again (lose the promotion).

Schism (dimension 3, Summoning):
You select two units in a stack. You will get two units back. These units will split their total power, total promotions and total experience between them. If you were to use a dwarven soldier and an elven archer for example, you could be given a unit which is both elf and dwarf. But you will be given back a melee unit and an archer unit.

Edit: Silly me, divine don't have access to a great deal of spells do they?

 

[kevjm]

Divine, Death 2: Curse
The targeted unit (not stack) cannot heal for the rest of the game. Can only curse two units at one time per unit with these promotions? Like death 1 and skeletons?

 

[Kael]

Divine, Death 2: Curse
The targeted unit (not stack) cannot heal for the rest of the game. Can only curse two units at one time per unit with these promotions? Like death 1 and skeletons?

That could be a pretty intersting mechanic. I was also thinking about having a creature that is big but never heals. Im going to add it as a promotion under consideration.

 

[Corlindale]

That could be a pretty intersting mechanic. I was also thinking about having a creature that is big but never heals. Im going to add it as a promotion under consideration.

Hmm...this got me thinking. How about an avatar unit called "Entropy Incarnate", which starts off with ridiculously high strength, but is also born with the inability to heal and a slight health degeneration promotion? It would be able to wreak alot of havoc in its early existence, but gradually it would start to fall victim to its own powers of degeneration, growing weaker and weaker until it died.

And maybe we could also have the "Creation Incarnate" unit, which starts off very weak and slowly grows stronger and stronger, being useless right when you get it, but eventually becoming the most powerful unit in the game.(This would probably be less straightforward to code, though.)

 

[loki1232]

And maybe we could also have the "Creation Incarnate" unit, which starts off very weak and slowly grows stronger and stronger, being useless right when you get it, but eventually becoming the most powerful unit in the game.(This would probably be less straightforward to code, though.)

Not too diff. Just give it an infinite heroic promotion or something.

 

[Kael]

If Chalid gets the iCombat adjust working it would actually be pretty easy.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I have a complaint [err, make that a suggestion!] about the life sphere--sanctify is a level one spell to clean up fall out. Good, but defile is a level 2 spell, the only way to produce fallout, afaik. Nevermind the fact that I've never seen ai cast defile, sanctify is still going to be useless until someone else gets a mage and then uses one particular spell.
2 possible ways to improve this situation: Have another way to produce fallout. Maybe a UU or otherwise rare unit will leave it behind when it dies, something like a pyre zombie maybe.
Or, combine with the spell effect consecrate, and have the spell both increase culture and remove fallout, and implement a different spell for life as well. Sanctify/Consecrate could work as either level 1 or 2 then, probably 2. Maybe for a level 1 life spell, increase food production on a tile by one as long as the adept/mage/etc. is standing there. Though that gets into nature, it's a blurry line.

Dimensional spell idea thrown in. Dimensional/Sorcery 2--Portal Shield: Next one time this arcane unit is attacked, the attacking unit is warped randomly to one of his cities.

 

[Kael]

I have a complaint about the life sphere--sanctify is a level one spell to clean up fall out. Good, but defile is a level 2 spell, the only way to produce fallout, afaik. Nevermind the fact that I've never seen ai cast defile, sanctify is still going to be useless until someone else gets a mage and then uses one particular spell.
2 possible ways to improve this situation: Have another way to produce fallout. Maybe a UU or otherwise rare unit will leave it behind when it dies, something like a pyre zombie maybe.
Or, combine with the spell effect consecrate, and have the spell both increase culture and remove fallout, and implement a different spell for life as well. Sanctify/Consecrate could work as either level 1 or 2 then, probably 2. Maybe for a level 1 life spell, increase food production on a tile by one as long as the adept/mage/etc. is standing there. Though that gets into nature, it's a blurry line.

Dimensional spell idea thrown in. Dimensional/Sorcery 2--Portal Shield: Next one time this arcane unit is attacked, the attacking unit is warped randomly to one of his cities.

We usually record all of our complaints in this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171428

I think you are right that some additional benifit needs to be added to Sanctify. Im thinking of a positive fallout effect that may give penalties to unholy units in the tile.

Let me think about it.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Hey Team,

Idea for water or creation sphere (not sure which)

Source River / Birth River / Flow

~Level 2 divine spell??
~Can only be casy in hills or next to mountain squares
~Caster is imobilized (cannot attack / defend) for x turns, where x is the number of squares to the coast time 3. (so if caster is 6 squares from the coast, the spell would take 18 turns to complete.)
~A River appears in the caster's square, and every tree turns, it grows one more square towards the coastline, in a random direction.
~The river is permanent.

Another idea for creation Sphere:

Raise land
~ raises land in target ajacent square. (ie ocean-coast-plain-hill-mountain)
~the resulting land formation is permanent.
~takes 20 turns or so to cast. caster is imobilized.

 

[Kael]

Hey Team,

Idea for water or creation sphere (not sure which)

Source River / Birth River / Flow

~Level 2 divine spell??
~Can only be casy in hills or next to mountain squares
~Caster is imobilized (cannot attack / defend) for x turns, where x is the number of squares to the coast time 3. (so if caster is 6 squares from the coast, the spell would take 18 turns to complete.)
~A River appears in the caster's square, and every tree turns, it grows one more square towards the coastline, in a random direction.
~The river is permanent.

Another idea for creation Sphere:

Raise land
~ raises land in target ajacent square. (ie ocean-coast-plain-hill-mountain)
~the resulting land formation is permanent.
~takes 20 turns or so to cast. caster is imobilized.

The river idea is very interesting. Im going to add it to the idea under consideration for spells. To be honest though Im about terraformed out, but I like the idea of being able to grow a river.

 

[Jono]

I just noticed Hippus Summoner is not unique to Hippus (well, I mean I just noticed the unit exists ^^)... Is this because the Air sphere is not complete yet or is it just an error in coding?

 

[Kael]

I just noticed Hippus Summoner is not unique to Hippus (well, I mean I just noticed the unit exists ^^)... Is this because the Air sphere is not complete yet or is it just an error in coding?

Error in coding. Hmpf, no wonder no one knew what the rarest summon in the game was. It wasnt in the game!