@Emptiness: no offense taken. I understand your need for a precise protocole and paradigm for a clear analisis. But I'm too fresh to know it, so would you guide me on an as-needed basis?
I'll try to answer your questions about the "Seizing mana nodes should be significant too." as an example of set of answers, and you tell me if it's detailed enough, OK? If you need more structure you'll give me more with more specific questions.
a)
you do not demonstrate the fact that seizing mana nodes is not currently significant
b)
nor do you define what you mean by "significant"
c)
you do not state in detail (or at all) why this change is necessary
Let's start with b.
b)
nor do you define what you mean by "significant"
Is significant a thing by two ways:
- If it has an impact on the gameplay (comparing to other options of similar cost)
i) balance between building time / warmonging time for example, that is the influence on the psychic personnality of the game, "the gameplay at large";
ii) fluid interface, or annoying? Defines how much outgame reality will interfer with the interactivity.
iii) strategic advantage (ingame).
iv) etc.
- If it means something in this virtual world of FfH; if it's helping immersiveness, credibility, background, coherence.
a)
you do not demonstrate the fact that seizing mana nodes is not currently significant
So yes, I think the current significance of mana crystals is low in the first half of the game.
Arguments:
- the player expects an advantage for seizing them because they are shown as resources among the other ressources, all of them giving immediate ressource advantages. Many mana node types don't (or are very subtle). The ressource rules are incoherent and disminish credibility thus immersiveness.
- The only current strategical impact is not credible: it is anachronical to seize future strategic resources if their power isn't even historically and technologicly suspected yet.
- The first unit able to harness mana nodes is the adept, a weak unit (low strength) with level I spells that require tier 4 technologies; this is usually not a top priority strategy since the crystals are long and perillous to obtain, the level I spells only give minimum advantages. In comparison, bonze working, tier 3, cheaper, gives stronger units than boosted or boosting adepts. So adepts arrive usually late in the game because rushing for them would be a waste of efforts on the short term.
c)
you do not state in detail (or at all) why this change is necessary
- I think the "magic feeling" is underrepresented in the startgame. There are too few succesful strategies oriented on magic rush, and they're too costy to be worth accelerated. They usually are researched when they've become cheap, which is too late.
- It's weird to play an heroic-fantasy game and find the inhabitants not interacting early with magic, even if they can detect and seize mana nodes. Don't they feel there is something there? Can't they foresee their use, and can't they harness some of their power? If the mana resource is known early, there must exist an early way to chanel it. That's the core belief of a world filled with magic and gods, the main difference with vanilla BtS, as a mechanism reflecting a fact (magic exists) and a cultural trait (people can feel it... and use it).
- By taking into account the mana nodes early, they would explain why this parallel ancestor dimension of ours became heroic-fantasy instead of our real world: in FfH they gave true advantages, so the fittest societies were the mana-sensitive ones, thus justifying the alternative evolution towards Heroic Fantasy. This would also convincingly recreate the era of miracles and prophets and saints similar to the world before Christ.
- At start, even a hammer or a bulb more than the other civs can mean a war won or a wonder completed first. Currently, it's rather the starting area that shapes our initial advantages, and sometimes the whole strategy for the firt half of the game. Adapting to the context is a good exercise, but the player should also have tools to develop a personnality. With the Kromlech enhancement (mana node harnessing unlocked at Ancient Chants), a substantial advantage - linked to your alignment - would be achieved, but you'd have to invest in it. More control, choices and tactic to the player.
- Allowing Kromlechs at Ancient Chants and random powers to great prophets at Mysticism, magic would be present sooner with a limited but appreciable impact. There could even be a one-time ritual, Prophecy (unlocked by Mysticism), that would create a Great Prophet unit.
Emptiness, tell me if you my words make more sense now.
@aimlessgun: which level do you recommend then? Deity?
Each of the benefits you mention come late (tier 4 tech + build mage guild + build adept + build node AND seize node) and at a serious cost (production, research and territorial decisions): they don't seem that great if you compare them with other alternative investements. Bronze rush can lead you to conquering a neighbour, for example. Life-node-harness will give you +1 Health only. Not a priority (there are cheaper ways).
@Tlalynet: You misunderstood the proposition. Sorry for confusing tech with
.
(I played the game by the way...
Prophets could be categorized as Disciple, if it helps you to consider them as magic casting units. Remember all the miracles real prophets claimed to be able to do.
@Neomega:
Inspiration only requires an adept, for the cost of a promotion, you get the equivelant of another elder council.
Exactly! Elder Council is a tier 2 tech, low cost building. Adept is a tier 4 units, costing 1.5 times the council, requires a harnessed node, and it gives the same as an Elder Council! So Adept are relatively expensive at the beginning.
, enchantment mana +1 
; a sage in Pacifism is 4 
1
, starts with Channeling 0. Then add promotions like...