Great Balls of Fire!!

[Grey Fox]

The biggest difference between catapults and fireballs is the movement speed and the range.

A fireball can have 4 movement points I believe, and the caster 3. That's a "catapult" coming from 7 tiles away.

 

[xienwolf]

AFAIK, having mana points for individual casters would be impossible, I remember Kael saying something once about how the game effectively doesn't track what casted what, so it wouldn't be able to tell which unit cast the spell, and which mana bar to decrease. This is the same reason why casters can't gain xp from casting spells (it worked in AOI because there was only one caster) and why you can have the same amount of skeletons as casters and a caster can summon one each turn untill that amount is reached - as opposed to each caster only being able to summon one.

Kael's comment was meant to specifically refer to gaining XP as being impossible, because it is something which happens seperate from the casting of the spell. With something like Ring of Fire it would be possible to grant it to the proper person because the effect is immediate. Whereas with something like a Fireball it is NOT possible because you could wait until the end of your turn to utilize the 7 fireballs that you summoned across your empire at the start of your turn.

The MP would be a mechanic used only at the moment of casting, so would easily be able to be identified as belonging to the unit for whom you just clicked on a spell.

Personally, I'd rather see it cost Hp than Mp so that you do not have to program in another attribute to units and find room on the GUI in which to place/track that attribute.

 

[galahadba]

Yes, the fire line are much overpowered, they make siege weapons useless... i actually don't even build any siege, as the level 3 fire apell is much better, they reduce 30% defense in a turn, have coletarel damage , can kill, cost no hammers, and have 100% escape (as they die and can be summoned every turn) , why would someone ever build siege with this? cost hammers that can be used to other things, get a slow movement unit, that cannot bebefic of any spell that afect living units (regenerate, hast, etc), and have a chace to be killed to cause colateral damage?

Maybe if siege got a 100% retreat, they could be even cosidered for use in the future.