Great Balls of Fire!!

[Nikis-Knight]

You guys are regressing here...
Anyway, many mana sources used to have effects on the surrounding terrain when you built them.
Fire scorched all the surrounding tiles, nature put forests all around, I think. I don't remember all of them, but it was removed for not being much fun, and eventually replaced with with the current passive effects/affinity systems.

 

[Thennorin]

Why not add cast times for spells? They could be balanced by spell or just use a generic ranking where level 1 spells can be cast every turn, level 2 spells every 2 turns and level 3 every 3 turns.

All it should need to work is a 2-turn and 3-turn expiry version of the "has casted" promotion. You could then do fun things with the mechanic. Example #1: arcane leader trait lowers cast time for 2 & 3 turn cast time spells by 1 turn. Example #2: make Amurite mages take 1 turn to cast 2 & 3 turn cast time sorcery spells. Example #3: summoner leader trait lowers all summon spell cast times to 1 turn.

I think it would help to distinguish magical civs better than they currently are. Amurites are very plain for a powerful magic civ, imo.

 

[xienwolf]

I'd really like it if the passive effects of the nodes were set to fit the flavor of the magic type, but more so to balance the spell selection. Having the nodes should cause a detriment if the line is powerful/popular, and have a benefit if the line is weak/unused.

Alternatively, make them emphasize the "playstyle" of the mana. Like Fire is a warmonger mana type, so cause it to give a small chance of buildings catching fire (being destroyed) to keep builders from being likely to have any.

 

[rusty217]

Problem with destructive magic is not that it is too strong in one usge but that it works each turn. Now magic mechanics assumes that all personal mana is fully regained each turn. Let us assume that it is not. Let us assume that caster's XP is an equivalent of mana and each time spell is casted the caster loose some XP. XP can be used up to 0 (previous promos and levels are not lost) and then spells become unavailable. Adjustable parameter is a "price" of spell in XP. With this heroes-casters are becoming much stronger then usual mages but there are some ways to regulate.

I think this is the best idea here, it would prevent magic users being overpowered but since at lower xp they earn it faster they don't become underpowered.

 

[eerr]

quote:"Some more ideas:
I think that fire mana should have a small chance to start fires in your territory (especialy I forests/jungles). "

this sounds like a great way to make fire mana bad for elves, though not impossible to be used.

 

[Ksi]

Can ancient forest be lit of fire? If not I cannot see how it is bad for the elves.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Why can't chances to randomly alter the terrain based on the amount of mana you own be included among the passive mana effects? I remember when this was supposed to be the case, but don't really recall the seeing the effects. Being an automatic thin when a node it built sounds quite un-fun, but having random chances be but another random effect seems fun and thematically appropriate.


Ancient forests o butn now (they didn't used to), but I think the chance of them catching fire or burning down isn't as high.


I don't like the idea of arcane units using up their xp to cats spells, but if another xp-life mechanism for arcane units is added (one not tied to purchasing promotions) costing these "mana points" could be nice. It would also be nice if there were a seperate xp-like counter per mana type (units would gaiun free "___ mana points" at a rate based on the amount of mana the civ owns and on the number of promotions the units has in that sphere), but I don't know where there is room to display these values, or if any can even be added.

 

[Roghar]

I think there is plenty to balance out fire being the most effective offensive weapon when optimised (big stack of mages with 3 archmages, hitting individual stacks)

- mid to late game strat, very vulnerable while getting there
- Fire gives no general bonus for the mana
- No useful peacetime spells
- Less effective agaisnt split stacks
- Weak defence, if you can get your troops at that stack its in trouble
- Very time expensive to replace lost archmages, and wizards unless really optimised to generate 10xp adepts.
- Fire protection availability through Fire summons

I haven't played a lot of multiplayer, but would really have thought based on other games I have played that its the fast strats that should be the most effective against good opposiiton? Generally speaking anything that takes too long to get going should never be allowed to get there. I'd be a lot more scared of an aggressive hippus or khazad player than an amurite or grigori fire specialist.

 

[Grey Fox]

Amurites can get 5 Archmages (Hero + Hemah) and easily get 10 XP adepts. But then again, this is their strength.

 

[it-ogo]

I don't like the idea of arcane units using up their xp to cats spells, but if another xp-life mechanism for arcane units is added (one not tied to purchasing promotions) costing these "mana points" could be nice.

Yes, it was the first idea but then it has been minimized over amount of coding. And thinking of it further I like xp idea even more: it feat many things, e.g. Luchuirp golems with fireballs, and hardly limits spell usage by non-arcane units.

 

[onedreamer]

Meteor shower isn't more powerful than a stack of catapults. In Civ catapults are overpowered because with a stack of them you can overcome any defense. In FFH2 cats are out of control, since they even have 80% base retreat chance. A joke.

 

[Ekolite]

I don't like the idea of arcane units using up their xp to cats spells, but if another xp-life mechanism for arcane units is added (one not tied to purchasing promotions) costing these "mana points" could be nice. It would also be nice if there were a seperate xp-like counter per mana type (units would gaiun free "___ mana points" at a rate based on the amount of mana the civ owns and on the number of promotions the units has in that sphere), but I don't know where there is room to display these values, or if any can even be added.

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.

 

[it-ogo]

AFAIK, having mana points for individual casters would be impossible,

I think in principle it can be made with promo mechanism in the same way as summoned units' turns-left counter. As "this-turn-spell-casted-by-this-unit" control is implemented now in some way. But yes, it may be too sophisticated. XP is OK for that.

 

[rusty217]

quote:"Some more ideas:
I think that fire mana should have a small chance to start fires in your territory (especialy I forests/jungles). "

this sounds like a great way to make fire mana bad for elves, though not impossible to be used.

Why should fire mana be bad for the Ljosalfar??

They have no seige weapons so they will need something to weaken enemy defenses. And it is thematically correct for the Ljosalfar to use fire aswell, read Thessa's pedia entry and you'll see that the Ljosalfar do like a bit of fire mana.

So making it almost impossible to mount an effective offense with the Ljosalfar becuase they don't want the fire mana to harm their forests, wouldn't that make anybody playing them be forced to remain defensive? How can you win if you never go on the offense.

 

[Grey Fox]

How can you win if you never go on the offense.

Not that I disagree with anything else in your post but the answer to this question is easy.

• Cultural
• Religious
• The Altar
• If you settle real aggressively and trade like a maniac; Tower of Mastery.
• Time. Survive with the most points when the time is up.

Now how many ways to win was that? Yeah 5 out of 7.

Besides, Ljosalfar can war pretty successfully without siege weaponry using basically only Gilden, with some support troops, and perhaps some Cavalry with flanking. Until the AI start getting too high cultural defense and too good defensive units.

But yeah. Fire mages can be quite essential for an offensive Elven War.

 

[rusty217]

• Cultural
• Religious
• The Altar
• If you settle real aggressively and trade like a maniac; Tower of Mastery.
• Time. Survive with the most points when the time is up.

Now how many ways to win was that? Yeah 5 out of 7.

True, but that is also 5 ways to lose if you don't attack any civ going towards one of those victories.

 

[Grey Fox]

AFAIK, having mana points for individual casters would be impossible

It's not impossible. I have mana in my cIVRPG. Mana that regenerates based on the wisdom attribute of the character. And, I think it works like it should, but it was a while ago since I worked on it. Just like HP is a separate attribute per unit, MP is.

Every spell supplies the unit object, my spells then checks that units MP, which like HP has functions in the SDK, and is an attribute of the unit object, if it has enough MP, it sets the new MP. And every turn every unit regenerate a certain amount of MP, depending on if they are resting, and their Wisdom attribute value. Maxing out at their MaxMP value, which depends on their wisdom and level, I believe. Etc, etc. So sure it can be done, if you mod the SDK enough.

And you'll see all this in a near future if I ever get my ass of my butt and start working.

I think in principle it can be made with promo mechanism in the same way as summoned units' turns-left counter. As "this-turn-spell-casted-by-this-unit" control is implemented now in some way. But yes, it may be too sophisticated. XP is OK for that.

That's how I initially did it in my mod, I had 20 promotions for current mana, and 20 for max mana.

 

[it-ogo]

That's how I initially did it in my mod, I had 20 promotions for current mana, and 20 for max mana.

And how did that work? Had you "pleasure and profit" from that mechanism?

 

[Grey Fox]

I had a whole python file with functions dealing with that system. Temporary calculations, then switching promotions as you paid for the spells, and as you regenerated MP.

But my new system is much better. You go through a lot of temporary solutions that you spend days on implementing when you are still learning.

 

[Calavente]

Meteor shower isn't more powerful than a stack of catapults. In Civ catapults are overpowered because with a stack of them you can overcome any defense. In FFH2 cats are out of control, since they even have 80% base retreat chance. A joke.

welll meteors are more un-balanced than cats because they are free !!!
every turn, every archmage can launch 3 !! you cats have to be build, then moved to the destination. whereas archmages can have haste and mobility and mostly are already in place.
and a stack of cats isvulnerable to counter attack. a stack of mage is less vulnerable. (spell escape) or hidden or...etc and has more range : up to 4 plots for a spell extension 2 meteor : compare this to the 1 plot range of the cats...