Design: World Spells

[it-ogo]

It's a bit weak offensively, but it makes the Ljosalfar practically invincible defending. For one, they can crush just about any invading army once. Second, in MP, the fact that just about any invading army can be crushed once means that most people probably won't attack them until the spell has been used - and since nobody will do so for as long as the spell hasn't been used, the best case scenario is that just the spell existing will keep the Ljosalfar safe from attack for the whole game.

Yes, it is very good against land blitzkrieg but what about, for example, Tasunke and his pillaging tactics by the swarm of cheap raider horsemen? Even AI is able to use this tactics effectively (in case of long overland border with him or his friend). And what about OO coastal assault from the sea? It is a good defencive feature but not absolute.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Will all civs know when a world spell is cast?

yeah.
I find Kurio to be quite useful early one, right as soon as you have your 3rd city, get two border expansions.
Some spells are like that, more useful in early or later game.

 

[westamastaflash]

Can Hyborem's Whisper be used on capitals too?

 

[xienwolf]

I would have loved it if the Balseraph gave the Enraged Promotion to all units in the game (see some nice barbarian hordes really soon )

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Enraged? No, that would mean game over for everyone. Way overpowered, and more helpful to the clan/Infernal/the Barb trait leader of the Doviello than to the Balseraphs.

However, I think it would be very nice for their spell to have a random change to make each unit gain the Crazed promotion. This seems more flavorful, and would have a similar but not as unbalancing effect. It might also be fun for it to give some boost to mutated units, and to sometimes make other civs get golden ages too. Randomness is key.

 

[Quetz]

amurites and khazad spells seem really weak to me

ljosalfar, doviello, elohim, sidar sound way too strong.

To try and cover quickly (and I have no read the whole thread, so if I am repeating, sorry)

Amurites seems the weakest. +1 xp per node, of which there can sometimes be only 6 in the world, is pretty weak. I guess you can use that one ritual to create some, but by the time you can build it you are probably unlikely to need the +10 xp from this spell. Plus they already have an xp-node mechanic, this seems repetitive. Would prefer something like all mages learn a random spell, or straight free level, or something.

Lljoalsfar - not only extremely strong, but imagine how many treants this coudl create.. a nightmare for the person who casted it moving them all

doviello - same, too many units, hopefully str not equal to unit it is based on

elohim - nice idea but 30 turns seems too long, 10-15 more reasonable.. 30 turns can be a very long time lategame

sidar - HN is way too abusable to give it to every single unit they have.

My point with the Doviello and elves is the same feeling I almost always get with the Baron, Hyborem, and Basium.. quite often the units they all generate are just a pain in the ass that I disand immediately. Might have the same effect here, but at least it's only 3 turns.

 

[Kael]

Sidar don't get Hidden Nationality, they become "Hidden" (aka: invisible until they attack or cast a spell). But the Svartalfar so get to make all their combat units Hidden Nationality, so your objection still stands.

 

[Quetz]

sorry, meant svart.. it's late

 

[DeaExMachina]

I think Hidden Nationality is fine since you can no longer use them to rush an empire and conquer it without having to declare war. It also makes your entire army vulnerable to open borders. Its why I stopped building the council of esus unless I was planning on a merc only victory like I've done with some of the financial Civs. The sheer annoyance of your allies or friends killing your own units can't be expounded upon enough.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'd only support the unit-granting spells if all of those units were made to have 0 upkeep costs.

 

[xienwolf]

I just pray that the checks for someone turning HN while on a city square, or sharing a tile with another Civ are working and this spell doesn't cause for a ton of crashes or automatic city captures.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

HN units aren't supposed to be able to capture cities any more, so I'm not sure that would be a problem.

 

[Scott Alexander]

Thoughts:

Spoiler :

Amurites- Arcane Lacuna: All the players Arcane units gain 1xp per upgraded mana node in the world, all mana nodes revert to raw mana. (Sounds annoying, kind of like Blight. "Oh, look, the Amurites cast Arcane Lacuna, got to build all my mana nodes again.")

Clan of Embers- For the Horde: 50% of the barbarian orc units convert to the Players control. (Do the orc units appear in the Clan capital, or stay where they are?)

Doviello- Wild Hunt: Creates a wolf unit for every combat unit the player controls, the wolfes strength is based on the matching combat units strength (So the Doviello pretty much double their units? Sounds useful. Where do the wolves appear - next to their partner unit, or in the capital?)


Elohim- Sanctuary: Kicks all non-team units out of their borders and makes all non-team unable to enter the players lands for 30 turns (I already have a strategy planned for this one. Elohim + Council of Esus. Sneak attack your opponent, take over as many poorly defended frontier cities as you can in one turn. Then cast Sanctuary just before your opponent launches the inevitable counterattack and spend the next 30 turns fortifying them. I laugh with glee at the thought of it. )

Hippus- Warcry: Grants all combat units +1 strength, blitz, +1 movement and has a 5% chance per turn of wearing off
(each of the effects individually has a 5% chance per turn, or the spell as a whole? Kinda sucks to be a Hippus player whose world spell wears off after 1 turn)

Infernal- Hyborems Whisper: Allows Hyborem to take control of a city with the Ashen Veil religion (Does the Hyborem unit need to be near the city for this or something? Or do you mean the Hyborem player? So this is good for one city per game?)


Khazad- Motherlode: Gives the player 10gp per mine they control (This seems useless. Up it to 100gp and it'd still be one of the worse spells. And it's not like the Khazad are especially powerful already.)


Kuriotates- Legends: Gives a huge culture boost to all the players cities and settlements. (Meh.)

Ljosalfar- March of the Trees: All forests in the players empire turn into Treants for 3 turns, when the Treants die they return to forests in the plot (This seems like a good way to move around forest cover - though that shouldn't be necessary if you've got mages with Bloom and other units who can cut down forests. It could work as a defense solution, though.)


Luchuirp- Gifts of Nantosuelta: Create a Golden Hammer equipment in each of the players cities (These can't finish Wonders, can they?)

Malakim- Religious Fervor: Creates a priest of the players state religion in each of the players cities with that state religion, these priests start with +1 xp for every city the player has with that religion (seems kind of weak unless the player has a LOT of cities)

Mercurians- Divine Retribution: Does damage to all Undead and Demonic units in the world (Ugh.)

Sheaim- Worldbreak: Does damage to all units in cities, forest fires start around the world (maybe use during a difficult siege or something. I like the idea of Tebryn shattering the entire world just to give his units a leg up in one decisive battle.)

 

[xienwolf]

Actually, the Sheaim spell is a nice Anti-FoL/Ljos ability. Especially if they use it just before invading Ljos so that there is no threat of a Treant Swarm by way of March of the Trees

As for your question about the Hippus, it is that each unit has a 5% chance per turn of losing the promotion that grants those abilities. I am assuming that it is a single promotion giving all the abilities, and not 3 seperate ones. As such... Yes, some of your units will wind up only getting 1 turn of this effect. If you are rather lucky, a single unit might make it 50 turns without losing the effect.

For the Infernal, I do imagine that the method for selecting the city is that you have to cast it from in, or next to, the city you will take over. And probably only able to cast it with Hyborem himself.

 

[Bad Player]

Cool stuff - some of those sound very powerful - especially ones such as the Clan of Embers!

 

[Dogfax]

Yeah, all the world spells were checked in well before the design contest started.

guess great minds think alike then

will there be a symbol next to the players name to indicate if they have cast their world speel? or will it just be an event announcement?

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Doviello- Wild Hunt: Creates a wolf unit for every combat unit the player controls, the wolfes strength is based on the matching combat units strength

Was this inspired by the movie 'Golden Compass'? I saw it this weekend in the move theatre and really enjoyed it. Very interesting idea with those daimonions as avatar animals.

 

[Unknown_Enemy]

Huh, is it me or the Bannor spells seems the weaker of the lot ?
Not that good, and economy wrecker.

Don't flame, I may have missed something...

 

[vivictius]

The Bannor and Khazad ones both seem rather weak. The Amurites I think is actually better then many people think, at least the way I play them it would allow me to replace the chaos and death nodes after Govannon learns them (and I build the tower of necromancy).

 

[DisFunctional]

Amurites: I like this one. Xp is always handy, though I don't like how this is so tied to map size. Also of note here, if you happen to have raiders throughout their land, you could cripple their arcane military production, particularly if they don't start with a decent offensive mana.

Kurio: very useful if you can manage to use during expansion (whether early game or a large conquering spree)

Llos: problematic in a large empire, I think I would change this to only the cultural boundaries of the elven capitol, and maybe the leaves holy city if they have it.

Grigori: Wow,as if the AI had any chance against a human Grigori player before...

Khazad: Could be useful after a conquering spree to get your vault back to overflowing. Honestly Khazad is strong enough that I see no problem with them getting a weak world spell.

Balseraph: It's quite useful, but I agree that it fails to meet the flavor of the race.

Bannor: I would swith this to something like this:

Rally: Gives a 30% chance to give each unit under the players control these promotions: Demon Slaying, Morale, Loyalty, Courage. Each calculated seperately. Also, will create a level 1 hero warrior in their capitol if their racial hero is dead. This hero would start with all 4 promotions.

Lanun, I think maybe something more along the lines of:

Avenging Waters: Reduces the mobility by 1 (minumum of 1) and damages all units currently occupying an ocean or shore tile. (including water walking units, and excluding Lanun units, or ones with OO faith)