Less Micro, More Love for Mana and AI

[vorshlumpf]

I've been pondering an idea for quite a while now and thought I would share it. There can be a lot of micromanagement involved in spellcasting, especially for spells such as Valor and Enchant Weapon.

I was thinking that a civ owning a certain number of mana nodes for a specific type of mana would auto cast those spells on all units within your borders. Lets say you need two sources of mana for 1st level spells. That would mean owning two Body nodes would auto-cast Haste on your units every turn. Then, with the appropriate tech level (e.g., Sorcery), owning three types of mana could auto cast second level spells that are appropriate (e.g., Valor).

The in-game justification for this is that a surplus of mana results in many minor spellcasters that can cast these spells for the empire. As tech levels rise and mana becomes more plentiful, society would naturally incorporate those spells into their daily lives.

Pros:
- much less micromanagement
- more incentive to hoard specific mana types
- more spell use for the AI

Cons:
- processing, possibly; I'm not sure if this can be implemented without slowing the game down

 

[MagisterCultuum]

This would greatly reduce the importance of having actual adepts or mages. I don't like it. Also, ther requirements you listed are much too low. I would much rather have more important passive mana effects than reusing the spells without a caster needed.


However, if someone could create an automate option for each buff spell that makes the units go around casting that spell where it is needed I would be very appreciative.

 

[Scott Alexander]

I agree with Magister that the mages are good to have around. But I'm afraid of an "automate mage" option because of how poorly automated workers tend to do (at least by my standards).

What about a mechanic by which any mage who can cast unit spells like Valor or Haste automatically does each turn? So all you need is to have a properly trained mage in your stacks and the problem solves itself.

 

[Grillick]

If such a thing were to happen, I would think it would require more nodes than is required to automatically give your adepts the spell. 3 nodes for 1st level spell, 4 for 2nd, etc...

 

[xienwolf]

Maybe this would be nice at say, 4 mana of the type. Or even higher. But at 2 it makes it almost worthless to actually build arcane units.

As for automated casting, it should be that when you set up automated mages they simply don't move around or something. Whatever is done it has to be something with a toggle to set it or remove it. Otherwise all of your casters might cast semi-worthwhile buffs when you REALLY need them casting defense/offense spells due to the present situation. And just setting the automation to do it at the end of the turn can be useless for some of the buffs (Haste, the first strike one...).

 

[Marksman77]

Not a bad idea at all.
I won't count the times I sweared micromanagement involved in casting Haste on my workers or garrison troops sent across my empire.
And Magister, you'd still need mages to use magic outside your borders (read: offensive).

 

[Calavente]

or you may make it as passive spell, lvl 1 are launchedd automatiacally every turns in any city with a mage-guild (or whatever it is named) when you have 2 mana. then, you would still need mages for lvl 2 passive actions, it won't be overpowered as only your units in city would begin with haste, each new unit will be treetoped/enchanted blade automatically.

and honestly, sacrifying 2mana nodes for enchantement, for the worth of having adept starting automatically with it is already a great enough sacrifice.

 

[vorshlumpf]

If someone doesn't want archmages, or doesn't want to cast the majority of the spells, or doesn't want to cast spells outside their borders, then I can see this mechanic 'replacing' actual adept units, yes. In which case, power to them (or, actually, power not to them...).

In case you didn't understand my sarcasm, there are many spells that wouldn't fall into this mechanic. Rust, Charm Person, all Summons, etc, etc. It is only meant to replace those buff spells that add a lot of micro.
You would still need to build adepts to get the best spellcasters.
And you would still need adepts to cast any of these buff spells outside your borders (e.g., Valor, Regenerate...).

Anyway, on to other concerns:

"Place an adept on each stack and cast the spell yourself each turn"
- This is called micromanagement. This is what I end up doing every game.

"You should need more mana nodes to get this effect."
- Fine by me; I just want to reduce my micromanagement. Or, keep the mana requirements low and tie in a tech requirement (to represent your civilization's advancement along the magical tech line).

For a very long time now, the developers have had auto-casting on their wish list. They assumed this would be a command/stance given to mage units. I'm just presenting another alternative.

 

[vorshlumpf]

One more comment: how would this be too powerful anyway? For two body nodes you get Haste for free each turn (within your borders). Powerful? Not really. Convenient (for the player)? Heck yeah.

 

[Calavente]

especially as you wrecked a mana node for any useful use out of a free hast... actually, 2 body node means every arcan unit can launche hast. thus you theorically have the manpower to launch hast on every moving unit, each turn (save your workers) with a lot of micro : concentring each moving units on the same square, launch hast, moving on the good direction.

so giving a free hast promo inside your border to your units save on micromanagement, + give the AI the same advantage. would be powerful also for echanted blade as even AI with the mana node doesn't micro manage to give it to every units

it is not as powerful as a free fireI for every adept or as free fire2 with 3nodes..

jsut a 'rusty' question :
in 0.23, rust targets 1 unit only, as metal promo comes back at the end of turn freely if unit is on a city it seems underpowered for a lvl2 spell.
if it targeted a stack it would be interesting. the yield is not interesting at all, disease being much more efficient (target a stack, does damages, effect is permanent)

maybe if rusts target stacks or if it becomes a permanent promo until dispelled or unit fully healed for x turns? (a promo negating metal promo)

 

[Sarkyn]

A building to facilitate this would work.

A "Hedge Wizard's Guild outpost" in a city.

Make it semi-expensive, say the cost of 2 adepts.

Make the building give the effect of adding the spells of which you X mana to the units in THAT city, per turn.

That would be a balanced approach to making sure that it still costs what it used to cost, even if you never leave your own borders.

 

[Marksman77]

Make the building give the effect of adding the spells of which you X mana to the units in THAT city, per turn.

This wouldn't help hasting your workers unless you micromanage to have them in the city at the beginning of your turn. This kinda negates the wanted effect...

This thread suggested me the following idea (casting Sanctuary to fight Hell being another micromanaging annoyance):
How about Life mana lowering Armageddon Counter on the plots within your borders? There was some criticism of the AC levels triggering Hell spread to good/neutral/evil lands. The AI probably doesn't understand the importance of keeping AC under specified level, what puts it in a disadvantage.
Having each Life Mana node lowering the counter by a fixed amount per turn would give smoother result (over all-or-nothing trigger). Hell would be less probable to spread to Good lands as usually good AIs actually build Life nodes and evil AIs don't.

 

[Aroldo]

Good idea Vorshlumpf. I´m for it.

 

[xienwolf]

True, as long as it is only within your borders it does negate micro-management only, and would help the AI quite a bit. I could see the point of allowing it at the lower ranks of mana (2 or 3). My initial reaction wasn't thinking about quite how few there are, and the fact that mostly it assists the AI in catching up to the players.

 

[jacktannery]

I agree. This is a great idea, however perhaps it could be tried out on the Amurites only first, and see how it works. It would make them a little more magical (and more inclined to hog mana), and if it works well it will be easy to extend to all civs. Good thinking though.

 

[vorshlumpf]

A building to facilitate this would work.

A "Hedge Wizard's Guild outpost" in a city.

Make it semi-expensive, say the cost of 2 adepts.

Make the building give the effect of adding the spells of which you X mana to the units in THAT city, per turn.

That would be a balanced approach to making sure that it still costs what it used to cost, even if you never leave your own borders.

Yeah, I had thought about this, as well. It was my original thought on the matter, actually, when I read about auto-casting in the developer's wishlist.

However, in my games, it would only reduce my spellcasting micromanagement in half. I have many soldiers posted near my borders, either in forts or otherwise, and that's where I need most of these spells cast. It's annoying enough to have to cycle units back to cities, in an organized sequence, when I get a new metal available for weapons (and that only happens three times a game at most).

Also, I don't think there is a need to 'balance' this idea . I really don't see how this is any sort of a major tactical advantage for anyone (except the AI, since it levels the field for them a little bit).

 

[vivictius]

Im not sure having all of your units in your borders getting haste (for example) is over powered, I know when I play the Amurites all my units do after I get Govannon. I would really like it if he would auto-train everyone in is tile at the beginning of every turn, that would really help cut down on my micro-managing.

It might make more sense if was just in cities with mage guilds, it can be argued that they have extra mages there casting the spells every turn.

 

[westamastaflash]

What this would do is eliminate the cost associated with all the "micro-managed" adepts. If i've got 15 adepts w/ body I and mobility I running around with my 15 workers, that's 15 military units that I don't have to pay for anymore.

But an auto-cast feature for units would be great for things like "dance of blades" to be cast at the end of each turn to help boost your defenses.

 

[formless blob]

There is a game called "dominions 3", which is an extremely good game in many ways, but which has a major weakness. This weakness is shared with many games, including vanilla Civ 4, and in a very big way with FFH. The weakness is a lack of focus on the interface. It seams to me that the FFH team is fond of including all kinds of funky new features, and who could blame them, surely that is interesting to design. However new features without tools to handle them sucks the hairy balls of the gods.

Long story short: Implementing autocast for spells is way more important than making new civilizations and whatever funky stuff is planed in Shadow.

 

[vorshlumpf]

What this would do is eliminate the cost associated with all the "micro-managed" adepts. If i've got 15 adepts w/ body I and mobility I running around with my 15 workers, that's 15 military units that I don't have to pay for anymore.

Okay. Are you trying to argue against the idea, or for it?
I like realism in my games, very much. But micromanagement seriously kills my games before their time. It's rare for me to even get archmages these days.

But an auto-cast feature for units would be great for things like "dance of blades" to be cast at the end of each turn to help boost your defenses.

This would be 'neat', yes, but it wouldn't significantly reduce micromanagement.