Dimensional spells?

[warrenlynch]

Poor dimensional mana. Only level 1 spells for all unit types, and everybody gets the same. Makes you not want to use dimensional. How about this?

DIMENSIONAL
sorcery 2- spatial link
switch the location of two of your units
sorcery 3- banishment
sends all undead, angel and demon units in a tile who fail spell resistance back to their home city
summoning 2- minor gate
summons a random level 2 summoned creature
summoning 3- major gate
summons a random level 3 summoned creature

 

[MagisterCultuum]

While agree the sphere definitely needs work, I'm not sure these are the best ways to fix it. Banishment sounds to similar to the Entropy III spell, banish.

I was thinking something more like:

Sorcery

-Mage Portal - most easily implemented as an obsidian gate that is created and disappears the same way as a wall of stone. (I actually already added this to my game) If it were a level 3 spell, perhaps it should instead either let you drop a unit on an empty tile, or to send your units to a city from the field.

- Phase Shift - gives one unit a special promotion that makes it able to move through a tile that is occupied by enemies without any combat. The unit would also be temporarily invulnerable to attack, unable to attack, and possibly invisible. If it is on an occupied tile when it loses the promotion it is automatically destroyed. Perhaps the promotion should disappear after a random number of turns, so you don't know when it is safe. This could also work as a shadow spell.

Summoning

- Invocation - lets you select one of your units from any tile on the map and bring it to the caster's location.

-Planar Rift- basically a combination of your gates. It's summons could be random, but preferably weighted based on how much of each type of mana you posses. I see this working kinda like hellfire, with the summons becoming stronger the longer the rift remains and the higher the AC. Perhaps occasionally the summons should be hard t control, appearing under barbarian control rather than the control of its creater. Or perhaps it should create summons under your control if you still have a unit on the tile, under barbarian control if it is unoccupied, and should be destroyed when rival enter the tile (like hellfire).

Should we think of divine spells too, or just assume that a religion appropriate for this sphere won't be added?

 

[cvlowe]

Dimensional mana is by far the most important- even without spells. Need it for the oh-so-important obsidian gates/the Nexus.

 

[Jarlaxle135]

Staying a bit on the D&D theme, what about a dimension door spell. Basically, the caster could teleport to any square within his (or her) visibility. While this might not be that far, it could be beneficial at times, say getting a mage into or out of a battle. I think that it would be a level 1 spell and push the current spell to level 2. Thoughts?

 

[onedreamer]

That spell would be more powerful than the current one, so I don't think they should switch. I like all these ideas btw.

 

[dynablaster]

This are really great ideas. I feel dimensional school should always be about utility and to a lesser extend trans/dislocation. It should never include any plain damaging stuff.
It would be amazing if you could use high Tier dimensional magic to fight stacks of units, not by burning them to ashes but just by scattering them, destroying the order and allowing other units to pick out the now undefended weaker units.

For example I could imagine a T3 summon spell summoning a unit ( let us call it the "Dimension Tearer" for now ) with strenght 9 movement 4 dimensional affinity 1 that will do the following in combat:

When it attacks a stack it will ignore the actual combat strenghts and pick a random unit instead.
When it wins the combat the Dimension Tearer and the defeated unit will be healed back to the amount of HP they had before the fight started. The defeated unit will be teleported to a legit tile in a random direction with the distance of the teleport is Dimension Tearers remaining HP after combat in % divided by 10.


By fire be purged

dynablaster

 

[Gamestation]

I've always wanted the dimensional sphere to include something like black hole which can force an adjacent unit to attack your stack. Pull out that stubborn city garrison 3 heavy crossbowman in the city with 125% defense.

 

[onedreamer]

or rather let you open a gate at their back to backstab them (ignore all defense boni of one unit, wether in the city or not).

 

[vorshlumpf]

This are really great ideas. I feel dimensional school should always be about utility and to a lesser extend trans/dislocation. It should never include any plain damaging stuff.
It would be amazing if you could use high Tier dimensional magic to fight stacks of units, not by burning them to ashes but just by scattering them

I really like this idea.

- Niilo

 

[warlock814]

How about a spell that forces the targeted unit to teleport back to its capital city? I also like the teleportation idea - allow the caster to move to any visible square within like 2(or more) squares of it, kind of like the hawk's scouting ability.

 

[vorshlumpf]

Personally, I don't like the dimension door idea. I already feel the current Dim I spell is useless - I've only ever used it to see if it actually works (yup, it does). Teleporting my wizard two squares is as useless as giving him water walking - why would I want to send him anywhere without protection?

- Niilo

 

[MagisterCultuum]

If it is limited to 2 squares away, then it is not that great. If you made it be any visible square and/or let you target which unit to send, then it would be awesome.

Water walking isn't useless, especially if your enemies lack a navy, if you have some drowns (preferably upgraded), or if you use it to walk on an inland lake. That last way, I have often parked mages and Archmages one tile from a heavily packed enemy city where he can cast his spells with impunity.

Also, the Dim I spell doesn't always work. If you try it when you don't have a capital (either late in a total elimination game or if you feel like cheating during your first turn) then it causes a serious error (makes you feel pretty dumb for trying it)

 

[Black Attila]

If it is limited to 2 squares away, then it is not that great. If you made it be any visible square and/or let you target which unit to send, then it would be awesome.

Water walking isn't useless, especially if your enemies lack a navy, if you have some drowns (preferably upgraded), or if you use it to walk on an inland lake. That last way, I have often parked mages and Archmages one tile from a heavily packed enemy city where he can cast his spells with impunity.

Also, the Dim I spell doesn't always work. If you try it when you don't have a capital (either late in a total elimination game or if you feel like cheating during your first turn) then it causes a serious error (makes you feel pretty dumb for trying it)

I don't think you are looking at it in the correct light. Dimension Dooring just 2 squares could also mean across water(even ocean) or impassible squares. I think it would be a great idea.Perhaps if this was the level 2 version, allow it to carry a passenger for greater usefullness.

 

[JDexter]

I second that motion. ^^^^^

Beef up dimensional (if you don't already have ideas anyway, as you often do ). The way it is right now I really don't want to waste a mana node just to be able to build the tower (which I would like to, but it's simply not worth it... - at least absolutely not in the time before the nexus and gates, which is the biggest amount of turns by far).

Teleporting across narrow ocean gaps seems pretty useful, also sending units to a city or the mage to a spot (similar to paratroops... hey BtS! ).

The L3 spell could be, as someone already proposed similarly, a dimensional rift that could not annihilate units, but resources or city population (the later might be a bit too "dark side", but creating a black hole has its consequences... ).

 

[Jono]

Not all spheres need summoning spells...

 

[Arwon]

A high-level stack-scattering spell is a brilliant idea.

 

[Grey Fox]

Dimensional summoning spells could include spells that hinder, and destroy summons.

Dimensional II Summoning spell could be something like Freeze Summon.
Dimensional III Summoning spell could be something like Recall Summon.

 

[Saien]

A high-level stack-scattering spell is a brilliant idea.

True, and those that don't should require (Sorcery || Divine) for levels 2 and 3. I hate having to check my summoners all the time when promoting.

 

[onedreamer]

Teleporting my wizard two squares is as useless as giving him water walking - why would I want to send him anywhere without protection?

You might want to send him somewhere FOR protection (IE retreat to a city or a stack). But this kind of spell wouldn't be more poweful than Recall, while normally level 2 spells are much more powerful than level 1.
I still think that a spell that a spell allowing units to ignore defense boni would be very cool.
A spell to scatter enemy stacks is already in the game (level 2 Air Sorcery).

 

[eerr]

hmmm, how about a fundamental change of the nexus, and obsidian gates?

obsidian gates will require only dimensional mana, but the airport ability will require the national wonder "Nexus Project".(nothing will be made cheaper but dim2+sorcery will allow:found obsidian gate)


(sorcery)

Dimensional 2 (Return)
....will allow the unit to teleport any allied unit to a city with an obsidian gate

Dimensional 3 (Recall)
....teleports the stack to a city with an obsidian gate(allied units only)
..additionally-level 3 allows dis1(escape) while casted, giving exhaustion


(summoning)

Dimensional 2 (Swap)
if this unit is in a city, swap it with a unit in the field

Dimensional 3 (Pact of Return)
.... can only be used while casted, gives exhaustion
unsummon target allied level 3 summon, removes the casted promotion

dimensional/summoning sends units back where they came from : P