Less Micro, More Love for Mana and AI

[Khai]

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

Nah, I disagree.

The game is single player. If the power of your OCD compels you so far that you must absolutely have every single one of your workers optimized by following them around with an adept then so be it. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you have to.

Much of this mod is roleplay, we're all sitting around imagining that we're the king/dictator/grang poobah of the elves or dwarves etc. I happen to like the fact that it costs something to use magic, UI 'optimizations' that inevitably feel like shortcuts only serve to pull the player out of the scenario.

 

[Calavente]

well for amurite it is boring to have each worker cast hast every odd turn.

and if you have adepts and 2body nodes (we are speaking about autocast or civ-cast with 2nodes) every adept has body1. so any promo can go toward your useful mana... and thus it becomes more a issue of micromanaging almost all movement to have stacks under each adept than issues of costs.

then, for enchanted blade it is even worse as the spell is permanent : to give EB to each melee unit you need 1 or 2 adepts for the empire. but A LOT of micro. so giving auto-EB each turn when you have 2enchantement mana means every adept has EB and thus you have enough bodies to encahnt every unit once.

IMO, the cost (2mana) would easily be worth the gain : civwide auto cast.
(oh We do not speak about earthwall and all thus.. they would still need a mage : they do not need micromanagement : they are permanent as long as the mage is in city...)

 

[vorshlumpf]

I happen to like the fact that it costs something to use magic, UI 'optimizations' that inevitably feel like shortcuts only serve to pull the player out of the scenario.

What pulls me out of the game is having to do nitpicky little things that should be automatic within the game's 'reality'.
I don't see this idea as just a 'shortcut'. It makes a lot of sense to me - always has. When a civilization gets to a certain technological level (in this case, magic 'technology'), it will incorporate that into everyday life.
E.g., Continual Lights cast on street poles for light at night; Gusts of Wind to power wind mills; etc.

 

[Calavente]

well, it depends on the cost a simple spell has upon the adept/wizard making it.

 

[felwar]

I have to agree with this, even if it was just enchantment spells. It's one of my biggest gripes when playing the amurites especially. Hell, let me sacrifice adepts to make buildings that give the enchanted blade promotion, or sacrifice a sorcerer for a building that gives flaming arrows. These are permanent buffs and should be easier to handle.

Govannon adds a whole other level of micromanagement that might be hard to work around. Giving him a city spell (like hope or inspiration that goes away when he leaves) to create a training academy might help.

 

[Calavente]

it might help but still leavs lot of micromanagement as you would need to move each unit toward this city after creation

 

[julko]

When a civilization gets to a certain technological level (in this case, magic 'technology'), it will incorporate that into everyday life.
E.g., Continual Lights cast on street poles for light at night; Gusts of Wind to power wind mills; etc.

Exactly same opinion here, but introducion of less micro should be done otherwise:

New building in Sorcery tech(battlemage commad post), which grants appropiate spells atomatically and permanently at units built in city if some appropiate Nodes for spells are connected.(As if unit of axemen have a Battlemage as a commander)

 

[Grillick]

Just what Fall from Heaven needs...More buildings.

 

[Calavente]

julko :
proposal
more buildings ??? not for FfH... only for the amurites

 

[vorshlumpf]

Just what Fall from Heaven needs...More buildings.

I agree. I don't feel adding more buildings is a good thing. Also, as mentioned above (and by me before), there is still a lot of micromanagement if the auto-casting is centred on cities (just like those weapon promotions). Assuming, of course, you are protecting your borders.

 

[miracle]

vorshlumpf - I like the idea.

Reduce micromanagement is great. And it does not give any real advantage to the player - if you wish, you can have almost the same effect with tricks of rotating troops around mages... I do such in every game, but it is really boring...

So - great idea, as far as effect only in you borders. In enemy land all fun with manual casting will be as nice as now

Btw, if effect seems too powerfull, it may be limited to cultural borders (!) of the city with mage guild. Not to city itself - almost the same micromanagement, as with casters, and no new buildings are needed, there already too much

 

[xienwolf]

Well, anything that a city provides/autocasts, a citadel ought to as well. So your border guards standing in Forts would not have to cycle to cities (at least I hope that a Citadel provides Weapon promotions...)

 

[Arqane]

How about a slight throwback to Master of Magic and world spells/nodes, though with a little FfH twist?

Give arcane units a channeling spell that can be cast on mana nodes with a range of 0 (they have to be on the node), and is removed if they move (like city spells). Each casting adds to a global channeling counter of that type. So 4 mages sitting on a Body node can channel 4 Body mana.

Then when you have enough power channeled, you can cast far reaching spells. With the 4 Body mana channeled from before, a mage with Haste can now cast Mass Haste (all units inside your borders affected).

The benefits would be allowing spells that reduce micromanagement (1 cast per turn would haste units in your borders). The costs would be in building the units, upkeep, owning the nodes, and not letting your channeling mages die. It gives a REALLY good reason to protect your mana nodes even if you've trained your best mages already. You could even have fun channeling 50 earth mana, and causing a worldwide earthquake .

 

[westamastaflash]

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.

I wasn't really arguing for or against, just saying what one adverse effect might be. When it comes down to it, I don't play enough games where I use lots of magic for this to be an issue for me. Probably a problem with my playstyle and why I can't win above monarch level.

I think your idea is a positive one, I just wonder if "magitek" was the direction the mod is supposed to take. I kinda think most of the civs work more along the lines of traditional D&D than Eberron (except for perhaps the Amurites and Lurichp, both whom feel very Eberron-like).

Perhaps some way of 'attaching' an adept to a military unit (like great commanders). Then you could have the military units cast the spells using an auto-cast feature (still needing to be implemented)?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Just what Fall from Heaven needs...More buildings.

Your say that as if you don't mean it.

Personally I think it could use several new mutually exclusive buildings, with both good and bad effects. However, I don't think there should be any buildings that don't have any effects except to allow building units.

 

[Rod]

Heaven, no.

FfH needs less buildings or even better an automated mechanic for a building to upgrade itself along the building tree without any human intervention.

(Forges upgrade themselves to weaponsmiths, Herbalists to Infirmaries whatever)

But back to topic. Indeed an automated buffing would be very useful and would save a lot of unneccessary human clicking around. For the time being it could already be useful, if we implement a feature that every spellcaster will make a check before I end my turn and will autocast buffing spells as per his repertoire if he has not casted this turn. In this case I could at least spare myself all the regeneration, valor, treetop defence spells.

 

[Dora190]

An idea, could it be made a function of the guard option for adepts in cities? or perhaps another guard option altogether so you that players could put an adept on 'buff' duty.