Making a new Magic System Part II: Spells

[Sephi]

under construction

• Some Spells like Trust will become Global Enchantments
• Spells will be unlocked by Spell Research (independent from normal Research), many Civs will gain better access to a few selected spells
• Some Spells might get removed or greatly changed
• Many Spells will be added
• Spell Effects will depend more on the Promotions of the Caster

Summon Spells

• Most Summon Spells will become Summoning Rituals
• Summons are in Power between normal units and Heroes
• Summons have a mana per turn upkeep so that you can have only a very limited amount
• All Summons have unique Effects tied to their Combataura
• Effects of Combatauras from Summons scale with their level, so high level Summons are much more powerful

Buff Spells

• Buffs Spells are Secondary Effects of Combatauras
• Every Spellschool has one Combataura (Holy Armor / Elemental Augmentation / Dark Blessings) that an arcane Unit specialized in that Spellschool can learn via Promotion
• Secondary Effects can be unlocked via Promotions. For example Blur is a secondary effect of Dark Blessings and can be unlocked via Promotion
• spell research gives access to the Promotions for secondary Effects
• A typical Combataura of an Archmage has a lot more secondary effects than one of an adept and some of it's effects will be stronger
• There is no micromanagement anymore in casting buff spells, the effects of a Combataura are applied automatically to its targets
• The Interface looks much better when several arcane units are in a stack, since the screen isn't spammed with buff spell icons+their autacast icons
• There is less need for Stacks of Doom since Combatauras have a range of a few tiles

 

[Sephi]

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[Sephi]

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please don't post here until tesb made a post

 

[tesb]

With most of the summons moving away to rituals (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=366841) there is a wide gap left open that needs to be filled, imho, with new spells. The Magic Promotions Include:

Spoiler :

Air III
Fire III
Water III
Earth III
Ice II
Law II
Shadow III
Sun III
Body III
Death I
Death II
Death III
Entropy II
Meta Magic III

1) With Mages being restricted to only one Spellschool there is also a new Problem: How to get Omnipotence?

2) A good side effect, now that spells cost mana, is that you can make spells that would be overpowered with the old system and balance them out through their cost.




Completed Spells:

Death I: Enervation:
Affects only living enemies (30% Resist): Places a debuff with the same name: -100% Resistance to Death Damage; -10% Healrate; -10% Strength; 50% chance to wear off

Death II: Black Fire:
Buffs all your units: -1 Strength, +1Deathcombat; +10% Strength


Entropy II: Energy Drain:
Debuffs Enemies: -10%expierence Rate; -20%Strength; 5% chance to wear off. If the Unit, affected by energy drain, kills another unit it will gain the promotion again up to threee times in total

Meta Magic III: Anti Magic Shell:
gives the caster magic immunity


Concepts:

Death III*: Decrepify:
replaces Enervation (Spell and Debuff); -100% Resistance to Death Damage; -20% Healrate; -15% Strength; 10% Death Damage per turn; 25% chance to wear off

Dimensional I: Planar Binding:
If your are good (alignment) it places a buff on all elementals and angels increasing their strength, if evil it strengthen all demons and elementals. The neutral version stays as it is (Banishing Weapons: +40% against demons, angels and elementals)

Fire III*: Flame Avatar:
gives the summon promotion perk: Blazing Flame which have a promotion combat apply Ignite and +1 Fire strength. Ignite is a debuff that deals 10%Fire Damage per turn, reduces the heal rate by 10%
Basically all your summons (i.e. fireballs) gain +1 Firedamage and ignite their targets


Earth III*: Flesh to Stone:
Places the debuff petrify on enemies (50 resist): -1 movement speed; deals 80%damage when removed; removed by combat



*for this spell to work i need up to two new tags for promotionsinfos:
1) deals a specified amount of a certain damagetype each turn
2) deals a set amount of damage when removed


Further Ideas:

Ice II:
A shatter/freeze mechanic

Water III: Rotting Wood:
places a high damage dot on siege weapons and ships

Law II: adjudgement (or martyrdom):
increases the strength of a unit by 150% is removed by combat deals 100% damage when removed

Air III: Storm Avatar:
your summons deal additional lightning damage, replaces fireball with ball-lightning (more damage less collateral damage no city bombardment immune to ciy defense, firststrikes and defensive strikes), gives access to a better version of maelstrom (you can only have one avatar buff active at a time).


If you have new or better ideas you are very welcome to post them

 

[tesb]

Concept 2:
Domain Spells:

those spells would afflict all units within your cultural borders and have high casting cost and maintenance.

Examples:

Fire Domain: All enemy units within your borders are ignited
Death Domain: All enemy units within your Borders are debuffed with Eneveration
Life Domain: All your units within your borders have additional heal rate and +1 holy damage
Air Domain: All your units gain the hasted promotion within your borders

 

[tesb]

@sephi:
if you have work for me to do, just say so

 

[Lorak]

One of the things I don't like about the current magic system is that the number of mana you have of a particular type affects the strength of some spells (summons) but not others.

I don't know if you guys are going to have the number of mana nodes affect spell/summon strength, or have players be able to choose how much mana they want to invest into a spell/summon to make it stronger, but whatever you guys choose, it would be really cool if you could have that affect nearly every spell in the game.

Summons could have higher strength like they do now. Damage spells could have higher damage/max damage (with a heavy nerf to the base damage, please), some spells could get a higher range, or longer duration. Although with spells maintained by mana, duration would not really be an issue.

To be honest, I can't wait to see what you guys come up with. Especially if your changes are going to work better with the AI. Would be even better if it helped with Out of Syncs. >

 

[tesb]

cleaned up posts

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I urge you to get inspiration off Age of Wonders 2 : Shadow Magic as that game is also inspired by MoM and has some awesome spells

 

[tesb]

i just played a game with syron full death magic
i love that game

edit: maybe i will port the syron i just love them, the magic system has all priority though

 

[Neomega]

be careful to make some spells affect all units in enemy cultural borders or something like that, because the more you make spells affect all enemies within your borders, the harder it makes for aggressive war to take place, and already aggression is fairly difficult in WM

 

[tesb]

@Neomega
true the buffs/debuffs have to be minor i also don't know if this would cause to much processing power.
if sephi wants to implement domain spells we could replace the terraform spells. for example make spells that turn your land into desert, grassland, grow forests, ice etc. and give your units buffs that increase their effectiveness on those terrain a bit further.

 

[esvath]

@tesb,
Enervation etc only affect all units in a range from the caster or all units? I think we can differentiate some spells by the range.
Death : rather weak debuff, range : 2, specifically makes enemy units vulnerable to Death Damage, Death direct damage spells
Entropy : strong debuff, range : 1/only affect one stack in range, reduce overall strength+defense, Unholy direct damage spells

Some ideas for spells:
Sun III : Searing Heat
damage a stack in 2-tile range (20%-40% Holy Damage), 10% Fire Damage per turn, small chance to blind (or weaken) Vampires
Water III : Torrent
As current-version Tsunami, but castable in coast or in riverside.
Metamagic III : Dispel Magic
With heavy emphasis for buff-and-debuff, I think Metamagic would be stronger than it is now. So, I propose to promote this into 3-tier spell. Your anti-magic can replace the 2nd-tier.
Metamagic III : Banishment
Destroy hostile summons in 1-tile radius (or 2-tile radius)

 

[Valkrionn]

Probably should not be posting this, but if the system is already being redone I see nothing to gain from maintaining the artificial 3spells/sphere limitation. Some spheres may have other effects that warrant fewer spells; Others may have more, weaker spells.

 

[tesb]

Metamagic III : Banishment
Destroy hostile summons in 1-tile radius (or 2-tile radius)

there is already a banish spell for dimensional magic III although it only works against elementals demons and angels which is more appropriate since those are real outsiders (from an other plane) i don't see any reason why banishment should work on sand lions, tigers or skeletons for that matter.

For meta magic III i also had an amplify spell in mind: you cast this and it increases the effects of your next spell


@Valkrionn that is true, sephi could just flatten the whole system and make new spells and spheres from scratch if he wants to. however if we keep the current system where every sphere has 3 promotions we should give each a spell, why would you even pick a promotion like sun III when there is no spell associated with it.


Suggestion:
-give each sphere only a few spells (one or two at maximum)
-spells simply get better (buffs targets more of your own units, offensive spells deal more damage etc.) when a higher tier spell sphere promotion is unlocked (could be done with the obsoleted tag)
-simply scratch a lot of spells that overlap to flesh out each spellschools more, sephi already wrote that he wanted to make light the sphere with the best buffs, elementalism with the best damaging spells and dark magic the debuff master.

Examples:
Fire:
Enables Fireball (summons one fireball with fire I, two with fire II and 3 with fire III, maybe add some new side effects for the fireball in higher tiers similar to the suggestion flame avatar above)
Air:
enables Maelstrom (again gains better versions with higher tiers, may also apply a debuff to enemy archers for one turn reducing their strength, this side effect might scale too with higher tiers)
Sun:
gives Blinding Light, higher tiers decrease resistance chance and increase duration
scorch is moved to a domain spell that turns all land into deserts within your border
Nature:
give access to poisoned weapons, higher tier spells have increased effect
remove treetop defense and vitalize to a domain spell that turns all land into grassland within your border, additionally all units are immediately fortified when in forests
Ice:
Snowfall similar to maelstrom, but with different side effects
Slow is moved to a domain spell (all enemies within your borders are slowed, maybe change slow to just increase movement cost)
Shadow:
enables Shadowwalk, gains more firststrikes with higher tiers
drop blur
Body:
Regeneration, heals faster and more units in higher tiers
Haste is moved to a domain spell
Life:
Destroy Undead (becomes more potent) and Resurrection (costs less, is faster to cast)
move sanctify to a domain spell that hinders hell terrain from entering your borders and also applies the lifeward promotion in your borders
Water:
implement a new spell that damages units, only cast-able on or near water/ river tiles
spring becomes a domain spell that turn all desert into plains and also adds freshwater to all tiles in your border
drop waterwalking
Spirit:
enables Courage. courage will also give the unit a bonus when fighting against higher level opponents
hope becomes a domain spell (hope building is build in all cities)
Mind:
Inspiration becomes a domain spell similar to hope.
charm person is more likely to apply in higher tiers, maybe drop dominate or merge the effect in higher tier charm person
Metamagic:
keep both spells and tier them like all other spells i.e. the eye can fly further and dispel increases in range/effect (first it only removed debuffs from your units, then buffs from enemies, and in the end it also turns mana nodes)
Law:
enables valor, the experience bonus is increased with higher tiers and loyalty is merged into valor
Entropy
enables Rust: tier I removes bronze weapons tier 2 bronze and iron and tier 3 all weapons upgrades
drop wither or merge wither with energy drain (see above)
Enchantment:
merge enchanted blade, flaming arrows and spellstaff in one spell: Enchanted Weapons (gives the enchanted blade promotion in tier I the flaming arrows and the enchanted blade promotion in tier II and all three promotions in tier III)
Earth:
Earthquake: deals minor damage, deals damage to walls, deals massive damage to units within cities (higher tiers have better effect)
Move Wall of stone to a domain spell (all your cities gain the wall of stone building)
remove stoneskin or rework it so it scales with tier.
Death:
enables the spell curse which is a dot similar to enervation or decrepify, is stronger in higher tiers
Chaos:
don't know yet
Dimensional:
you gain access to three spells based on alignment:
good: planar binding (buffs angels and elementals)
neutral: banish (damages angels, demons and elementals)
bad: planar binding (buffs demons and elementals)
all three spells scale with tier
put my beloved nethersword spell somewhere else (make a civilization specific spell for the sheaim for example)

Edit 3: i forgot: make townportal a domainspell as well, teleport assault is still there with dimensional magic III



I don't know what sephi is up to, i guess his quietness is due to the fact that he has a lot of work before him implementing the basics. The good thing is that most of those spells can be easily written, so i could take some work away from spehi so he has more time to actually code the basics and deal all the important groundwork.

Edit: i am done with editing this post for now

Edit 2: i can't help myself, but i am addicted to editing posts
remove/rework the arcane mastery system so that omnipotence is achieved when a units has mastered two spellschools. an adept and mage can only have one spellschool an archmage two.

 

[Valkrionn]

Last post I make on the subject, for various reasons.

But there is nothing keeping you to 3 sphere promotions. You don't need a blank promo; If it grants nothing cut it. Hell, even WITH the current system you don't need the sphere promos; Rename the promotions "Blaze", "Fireball", and "Summon Fire Elemental" and you have the same thing, but remove any reference to a firm limit as to how many spells a sphere may possess.

 

[Quetz]

Wow. Ever since I first discovered FFH I always wanted to do this, but I don't know anything about coding. Can't wait to see what you guys come up with.

Random thoughts:

Wouldn't it be easier to do this following a pattern for spell spheres like MOM? When I was thinking about this I planned to combine the spell spheres (eg Death would have spells from FFH Death/Entropy, Astral would be metamagic/dimensional, etc.) This would allow for longer spell schools instead of level 3 being the max and fits with what Valk said above.

Also to that end, why not rip even more spells from AoW? I also suggest check out dominions 3 if you need spell ideas, it's not as well known but far better imo, and has a very unique magic system that I love

 

[Valkrionn]

Wow. Ever since I first discovered FFH I always wanted to do this, but I don't know anything about coding. Can't wait to see what you guys come up with.

Random thoughts:

Wouldn't it be easier to do this following a pattern for spell spheres like MOM? When I was thinking about this I planned to combine the spell spheres (eg Death would have spells from FFH Death/Entropy, Astral would be metamagic/dimensional, etc.) This would allow for longer spell schools instead of level 3 being the max and fits with what Valk said above.

Also to that end, why not rip even more spells from AoW? I also suggest check out dominions 3 if you need spell ideas, it's not as well known but far better imo, and has a very unique magic system that I love

Easier? Sure.

Better? No. And not what I intended to come across as saying with my post.

FfH has 21 mana spheres for a very specific reason, and each has it's place in the lore... Hell, each is represented by a different god. Any combination/removal of spellspheres wreaks havoc with that.

 

[tesb]

Last post I make on the subject, for various reasons.

why stop, ideas are always good ?
the more options there are on the table the more good stuff we can pick from them. if you do stop i have to use my mind reading powers again

But there is nothing keeping you to 3 sphere promotions. You don't need a blank promo; If it grants nothing cut it. Hell, even WITH the current system you don't need the sphere promos; Rename the promotions "Blaze", "Fireball", and "Summon Fire Elemental" and you have the same thing, but remove any reference to a firm limit as to how many spells a sphere may possess.

It has more to do with the fact that arcane units are tiered into three levels (adept, mage and archmage). A higher tier spellcaster should always have access to better spells, i just don't like it when you have an archmage who is stuck with measly spells.

i also cleaned up post #15

 

[Valkrionn]

why stop, ideas are always good ?
the more options there are on the table the more good stuff we can pick from them.

And that is the problem.

It has more to do with the fact that arcane units are tiered into three levels (adept, mage and archamge). A higher tier spellcaster should always have access to better spells, i just don't like it when you have an archmage who is stuck with measly spells.

i also cleaned up post #15

It's tempting, but I'll refrain from commenting.