fireball

[xienwolf]

Thinking about it again, I'd prefer it moved off Elementalism completely. Not sure which other tech needs help in warfare and has a fitting sphere though...

Maybe an Enchantment Summon? None there yet.

 

[it-ogo]

I'd like to have a wall destruction as a property of earth magic. Kikijub is OK but better is something at sourcery II. Rust is good for Water II in addition to Water walking. And instead of Earthquake something like Sap (range1) - for 1 turn allows units ignore city defensive bonus if the city is within range of a caster.

 

[Cuteunit]

I'd like to see more fireball-like spells in other mana's tiers personally, and I would like it if ALL spells had +mana affinity, with a corresponding reduction in their base effectiveness. So many obvious options. Call Lightning, Maw of Earth, Radiant Cinders, Flood. Air/earth/sun/water.

It would also be nice if the unit casting the magic's Fortification bonus was applied somehow to the spell damage of all attack spells too. After all, your mage (or summoner) has hunkered down and taken the time for a better magical working, not out in the tundra living in tents.

With such a well made, complete product like FFH its easier to notice whats missing from the pie than otherwise. FFH has too much emphasis on the sword and not enough on the sorcery. Fire is of course the exception, which is what this post is all about.

 

[Calavente]

does lightening have more effect depending on the weapon promo of the target unit ? (as each of those metals are more conductive than the previous .. almost .. remark : bronze weapons are not copper !!)


if not it could be added to make a powerfull offensive spell .

: sorcery + air 3
5str, +1 against bronze, +3 against iron, +5 against mithril.
(so the spell scales with the game and unit : the more equipement you have, the more vulnerable you are)
add to it that the spell attacks until the "lightening unit" is dead.

ie : if a Lbolt is launched against an axe with mithril : 8 the Lbolt attacks with 10str, kills the units and attack the next one... (it is lightening !!!)

or if it rather works as a tile affecting spell :
have lightening bolt give damage to a unit : 50% (it is a L3 spell) then +10% against Bronze equiped, +20% against iron, +40 against mithril. : max damage is 90%.

BUT : if the unit is already damaged, and is killed by the lightening, the remaining damages can be spilled on a unit from the same stack.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, unless you make them implement differently, I don't think it is a good use of the space (limit of spell spheres and attempting to keep it to 1 spell per level) to flood the market with attack spells.


The options would be to make it FAR more common to have a resistance and a weakness to damage types. Then even if all the spells work the same, they are not completely interchangeable, you need the right one for the right situation.

Ideally, if not done by making resistances/weaknesses very common (and returning the the rock/paper/scissors aspect, but now with magic), make it so they are not all just "Races" of attack spells. Like water being +50% across rivers or from the coast, sun being +50% in desert.... It would be best to make it so each one was mechanically different, then you run into problems for what you can code.

Like lightning. It can be as proposed above, stronger against weapon promotions. But can you base something off the opponent's promotions? It could also be that it has a larger range than fire, but the strength reduces with range. But can that be done? Or just give it Blitz to simulate chain lightning, or huge collateral damage.

Ideally, Earth would be able to reduce city defense, Lightning would do collateral damage, and fire would do damage over time. But what about all the less obvious spheres? The more spheres that get some kind of attack ability, the more the other spheres desire them, or some other compensation in place of it...

I think that it is fine as is. Yes, if you are looking in terms of fighting, then Fire is the standout as attack, but many people also enjoy death and the upper end of some other spheres... so I think it is nicely set up in that respect.


But Civ isn't supposed to always boil down to a fight. The ideal game you wind up never really having war. Or only short wars to achieve political agenda. And as such, it is remarkable how many options have been worked into the magic system that are NOT fighting oriented. It is easy for us to think of ways to hit stuff, but hard to think of worthwhile ways to go about normal life. So I am quite fond of the work done with the magic system so far, and how difficult it can be to make your decisions for anything but fighting.

But yes, it all boils down to: this is a game, and once your civ is wiped out, you just start up a new game and go at it again. Hence there is no natural aversion to war and fighting. When you have 2 cities left you PREFER to be wiped out rather than sit around scraping out a meager existence. Unless you are lucky enough to be playing a Diplogame, in which case you aren't doing so hot if someone knocked you down to 2 cities

 

[Cuteunit]

What game have you been playing where FFH doesn't have heavy warfare aspect? I just spent sixty turns erasing the Illians after auric declared war on me, and helping Cardith Lorda hold off the doviello and Sabathiel attack the Calabim.

I like your ideas for making attack spell schools characterized against their terrain.

 

[Goodgimp]

What game have you been playing where FFH doesn't have heavy warfare aspect? I just spent sixty turns erasing the Illians after auric declared war on me, and helping Cardith Lorda hold off the doviello and Sabathiel attack the Calabim.

I like your ideas for making attack spell schools characterized against their terrain.

It's hit or miss for me. Some games the AI plays very aggressively. The past two games I've played, a war has never been started (even with Aggressive AI on).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

does lightening have more effect depending on the weapon promo of the target unit ? (as each of those metals are more conductive than the previous .. almost .. remark : bronze weapons are not copper !!)

Both bronze and iron weapons add -25% lightning resistance (i.e., vulnerability to lightning damage)

Just wondering, but how do you know how conductive Mithril is? (Seeing as it is fictional)

Personally I think that the weapons promotions shouldn't be automatic, but should be handled as spells similar to the crew promotions for ships, where you can cast a spell to gain one and loose the others (except it require appropriate resources and technologies.) The you could add more types of weapons with different bonuses and weaknesses (and costs. Mithril could still be the best, but could require, say, 100 gold each time you give a unit mithril weapons.)

I also think it would be cool for Doviello units to steal the weapons promotions from the units they defeat.

 

[Cuteunit]

does anything in the whole game actually do lightning damage apart from the actual lightning elemental, which is one of the weakest in the game anyways?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Air III sorcery spell, Maelstrom, uses lightning damage.

 

[Cuteunit]

That's something anyways.

btw MC, where's this minimod of yours? =)

 

[Ecofarm]

Read the fireball entry in the civilopedia.

If you still odon't think the elves should use it, build the act of Nilhorn, and use your giants.

Ever tried that? They move one; they do not come out with 2xp for mobility. They cost ~70hammers each (quick speed). The problem is that the giants defend FIRST. I had all 3 die before any of my rangers even defended once. Enjoy building them, but be ready for them to die in the first engagement. Kinda pointless. Unless they are made MUCH less likely to defend, it seems their only place is to exploit the AI via HN.

but both ironic and balanced because they may set fire to their own forests...

I don't think fireballs set fire to forests, only blaze and multi-tile fire spells do. I tested back in .25: 10+ fireball mages, throwing fireballs into a jungle, for ~20 turns - no fire started.

 

[xienwolf]

Actually, I think you are onto something with this "Many weapons as ship-style promotions thing"

You could essentially create a RPG style class system with your mages if you wanted to. Equip a Wand and you get attack oriented spells. Equip a Staff and you get support/healing oriented spells. (could even work for summoners. Make the support type be unit transport with high movement, or summons which can sacrafice themselves to build improvements, allowing an adept to fill in as a quick worker... could be awesome to have a magical Civil Engineering Corps who lays roads for your fighting troops).

And of course for the melee you can have a large array of weaponry which can basically be 1 free promotion (allowing to duplicate with current). So maybe a Tower Shield (Shock 1), GreatSword (whatever it is for anti-melee), Light Armor (Light Promotion... weaker, but more movement...), elementally enhanced weaponry... And of course tie in some elemental weakness/strength to the majority of the items to allow counter-strategies with magic going both directions.

It would keep from havig to create a unit for each "basic equipment" item, but allow the game to implement some fundamental style equipment for units

EDIT: Oh, and as an answer for how my games manage to not have much fighting... well, the other AI fight quite a fair amount, but I almost always manage to maintain a large standing army, keeping people from trying to pick on me, and I conduct heavy diplomacy, so can typically get anything I want through trade. I trade with enough people that everyone likes me, and if anyone does attempt a war, I typically crush them within 10 turns or so by amassing all of my defenders (generally 1 melee, 1 ranged, 1 sorcery, 1 divine and 1 summon type on each city... as I said.. large standing army). And I typically stay ahead in the tech race well enough that I do not mind handing out some free tech to the lower score people who decide to make demends in spite of my power sometimes.

 

[Tyrs]

I have to agree with the idea of specialized soldiers ala ships promos. That would be very awesome. What I don't get is why does each magic sphere and level only get one spell? Etropy divine gets two, why not, say wind? Wind II Sorcery get a Call Lightning spell, say one strength and affinity, that works like Fireball, but weaker. That way fire is still the strongest attack sphere, but it isn't the only way to go for an early attack.

 

[Cuteunit]

Arcane Corps of Engineers would be so cool I'd have to name two of my cities Valdez and Panema...

 

[it-ogo]

About giants: AI is very bad against them. Early on AI is programmed not to attack HN hill giants as they normally do not enter cultural borders. And AI workers ignore their approach. So your giants can freely walk through foreign territory pillaging improvements and killing workers, who do not run away. It's easy to push a neighbour into stone age. If you get them rather early.

Yes, that is an exploit. Like with Loki.

 

[Bart133]

Well, the problem with that is there is no way to tie units together on a one-to-one basis so that the game knows whom to give the xp. Of course, it seems like the Unit Design Contest winner, the Divided Soul, would be impossible for the same reason, so maybe the team has/will come up with a way to link units to allow this kind of coding.

Epona in Age of Ice gets experience when her fireballs kill stuff, doesn't she?

 

[it-ogo]

Epona in Age of Ice gets experience when her fireballs kill stuff, doesn't she?

As I remember she was only unit able to cast fireballs. So fireballs did not need connection to caster: any fireball gave her experience.

 

[SwordofStriker]

About giants: AI is very bad against them. Early on AI is programmed not to attack HN hill giants as they normally do not enter cultural borders. And AI workers ignore their approach. So your giants can freely walk through foreign territory pillaging improvements and killing workers, who do not run away. It's easy to push a neighbour into stone age. If you get them rather early.

Yes, that is an exploit. Like with Loki.

I was just using them in a recent game and the AI most certainly did attack them while I was pillaging their countryside, and the workers did in fact flee from them.

 

[it-ogo]

I was just using them in a recent game and the AI most certainly did attack them while I was pillaging their countryside, and the workers did in fact flee from them.

Hmm... Strange. I thought they are attacked when AI have enough strong unit to be assured in victory. But what can influence on workers behavior I can not even imagine. Are you sure they were HN?