Making a new Magic System Part II: Spells

[tesb]

Do you still have the XML for this? I would like to add it now

here they are, i will add the reworked planar binding spells a bit later and maybe add some new spells

 

[captainmission]

If anyone has more ideas, just post them

how about combat bonus for unit types that currently don't get spefic ones?

mounted units- ride with the wind; 10% combat bonus + some first strikes

seige units- diseased corpse; chance to spread diseased promotion to x units, x unhealthness in cities attacked for y turns
volotile concoction; + collatoral damage

discpline units- bonus for their religion (+1 appropriate damage type plus other effect). For example- favour of Cernnunos; +1 posion plus chance to entangle or slow

animal units- wild rage; +1 combat animal becomes enraged

 

[tesb]

*sniff* i just made the flame avatar spell, available with fire III, it would grant your caster a promotion with the same name, basically all your summons (i.e. fireball, shooting stars and netherswords) deal one additional fire damage and ignite their targets. But then i found out the promotioncombatapply does not work if the unit suicides, so they won't ignite their targets

@sephi
i am working on the new planar binding spells and imho they should be an combat aura as well:

good: elementals and angels gain planar binding promotion (i.e. +25% strength)
neutral: all melee and archer units gain banishing weapons (+50% against demons, angels and elementals)
evil: elementals and demons gain planar binding promotion (i.e. +25% strength)

you already have the banishing weapons promotion, do you want the two planar binding promotions as well? i currently have the problem that i can't get the spells to only affect elementals and angels and accordingly elementals and demons.

 

[Imuratep]

I think diseased corpses (the AV unit) should finally get a spell or some other method that grants them additional strength/healing rate as long as they are diseased. It is a stupidity that the first thing you do after building them is to cure them from the disease that should have been the reason why you build them before.

 

[tesb]

i would just make a copy of the diseased promotion and remove the malus, if you cure them i think they no longer pass on the diseased promotion. with this solution they would still do, but would not loose strength or regeneration rate.

 

[Sephi]

*sniff* i just made the flame avatar spell, available with fire III, it would grant your caster a promotion with the same name, basically all your summons (i.e. fireball, shooting stars and netherswords) deal one additional fire damage and ignite their targets. But then i found out the promotioncombatapply does not work if the unit suicides, so they won't ignite their targets

promotioncombatapply should trigger on combat lost, but it is random, so often no promotion is applied.

@sephi
i am working on the new planar binding spells and imho they should be an combat aura as well:

good: elementals and angels gain planar binding promotion (i.e. +25% strength)
neutral: all melee and archer units gain banishing weapons (+50% against demons, angels and elementals)
evil: elementals and demons gain planar binding promotion (i.e. +25% strength)

They probably work better as global enchantment as they are very situational. Fair winds for example will become a global enchantment. Has a very low mana/turn cost and applies fair winds promotion to your ships every turn. A Global Enchantment that makes all creatures from different planes stronger sounds like a very good idea to me.


I have added Blackfire and Anti Magic Shell to the combatauras. Will add more later based on the ideas here.

 

[Sephi]

I think diseased corpses (the AV unit) should finally get a spell or some other method that grants them additional strength/healing rate as long as they are diseased. It is a stupidity that the first thing you do after building them is to cure them from the disease that should have been the reason why you build them before.

I have replaced the diseased promotion from corpses with diseased carrier promotion. The diseased carrier promotion cannot be healed and has Strength reduction of only 10. Unholy Addiction from the Dark Blessings Combataura is a possible way to increase healing of diseased corpses.

 

[tesb]

promotioncombatapply should trigger on combat lost, but it is random, so often no promotion is applied.

do you know high the chance is? that explains the behavior. i will try it again and if it works i will upload the files.

They probably work better as global enchantment as they are very situational. Fair winds for example will become a global enchantment. Has a very low mana/turn cost and applies fair winds promotion to your ships every turn. A Global Enchantment that makes all creatures from different planes stronger sounds like a very good idea to me.

do you have a list of spells (besides trust) that you will make into global enchantments? sounds very nice indeed

i would still like to see promotion tags that can deal periodic damage and damage when the promotion is removed, also have you thought about new spells, i mean stuff the mages can actually do we don't want them to become aura carriers, do we? i would like to see a least one spell per magic sphere, the problem is only that you can do very limited amount of stuff, since the combat in civ4 is not particularly deep

as of now we only have fireball, shooting stars, netherblade and maelstrom as available spells for mages, i made some suggestion in post #15 but i realize that most of them have already being taken care of with the spellauras

 

[Pazyryk]

If you want, feel free to grab Imprisonment spell from my modmod. It puts all surrounding hostiles in a cage (cities and some improvements protected). It would work as a high-powered Law III or maybe Force III spell. It's quite a lot of fun. (I have it as one-time cast only. Might want to limit it in some other way like allowing resistance checks.)

 

[Sephi]

do you know high the chance is? that explains the behavior. i will try it again and if it works i will upload the files.

I have added an XML tag that you can use.

<iPromotionCombatApplyChance>100</iPromotionCombatApplyChance>

do you have a list of spells (besides trust) that you will make into global enchantments? sounds very nice indeed

yes and no. I first have to see what can be implemented. But I guess there will be around 15 initially.

i would still like to see promotion tags that can deal periodic damage and damage when the promotion is removed, also have you thought about new spells, i mean stuff the mages can actually do we don't want them to become aura carriers, do we? i would like to see a least one spell per magic sphere, the problem is only that you can do very limited amount of stuff, since the combat in civ4 is not particularly deep

With the new mana system a lot more is possible since you can balance strong spell effects with a high mana cost. My plan is about 5 spells (with different powerlevels) per spellschool initially, probably more later.

 

[tesb]

With the new mana system a lot more is possible since you can balance strong spell effects with a high mana cost. My plan is about 5 spells (with different powerlevels) per spellschool initially, probably more later.

very nice indeed, in the attachment are the xml files with the flame avatar -> conflagration -> ignite mechanic i commented <iPromotionCombatApplyChance>100</iPromotionCombatApplyChance> out for now (it's the last promotion in the promotioninfos.xml).


what i meant with the not so deep combat in civ4 is that since you gave promotions to the spellauras the only big thing left is damage and there are only some degrees of freedom on how the damage is being delivered and who gets damaged, before the spells are just becoming copies of each other.

then there are terraforming but they are just so annoying, i really hope you make those global enchantments as well (or domain spells as i put it, since it only should work inside your borders)

and then there are utility spells, like teleport assault, blinding light, townportal, charm, ... (nothing wrong with them)

and finally city enhancing spells, which i hope will be global enchantments as well i don't like to have a mage sit in my cities just to keep the buildings. or you could change the buildings so they no longer require a caster in the city but drain your mana pool, since you introduced a tag for removal of buildings in the spellschema on my behalf we could easily implement spells that lift those buildings (walls of stone, justice, hope etc.)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Pazyrik's Cage spell sounds great for Force III, the current one is very underpowered for a level 3 spell... btw, with mana upkeep Water II could definitely be made in a stack-affecting combataura and not be overpowered as the upkeep would balance it out nicely

 

[tesb]

doesn't the game crash when units are on tiles they are not supposed to be though? what happens when you run out of mana in the middle of the ocean?

 

[Valkrionn]

It doesn't cause a crash as far as I'm aware; Depending on the mod, the units either die or are ported to the nearest landmass.

 

[Sephi]

The reworked Air Sphere is finished. It currently has:

• Fair Winds: Global Enchantment that makes all Ships faster as long as it is active
• Windwall: Promotion that improves the Elemental Augmentation Combataura by applying Windwall promotion (bonus vs. Archers) to target units
• Erosion: Terraforming Ritual that removes a few Peaks
• Arid Climate: Global Enchantment that changes Climate to Arid
• Air Elemental Summon: Strong Summon with a Mobility Combat Aura
• Lightning Spark*: Targets one enemy in a plot within arcane range(usually best defender) and does moderate damage
• Maelstrom*: Targets one plot and deals moderate lightning damage to max. 5 units.
• Empowered Lightning*: Targets one plot and deals moderate lightning damage to all units on the plot

The target plot of the Spell isn't automatically selected. Instead you click on the spell, then on the plot where you want to aim the spell at (possible plots for the spell are highlighted in red). I will use the same mechanic for fireball so that we can get rid of that "fireball as a unit hack". Probably post a screenshot the next days.

 

[tesb]

sephi i would be careful with the damage line of the air sphere if you do that with most spells they loose their uniqueness and become a magic version of ranged combat. while there is definitely room for such a mechanic i would not homogenize all spells. the characteristic feature of maelstrom was that it affected a lot of tiles. imho the fireline would be much more fitting for that mechanic.
maybe move arid climate to sun instead of air?

i am working on the *.nif right now for the firewall, a second positive city affect for growth/ hope inspiration etc. and an effect for negative buildings.

I will upload the files with the txt fixes soon.

 

[tesb]

ok the buildings are done:

Spoiler :

upper left: ring of fire (there are two rings one is rotating clockwise the other counterclockwise)
lower middle: dark ritual (hard to see on the screenshot: it is a purple swirl with lightning here and there)
upper right: growth (just some green blinks who move slightly)

i still have to do the xml work though

 

[tesb]

here are the files regarding the buildings. i will upload the txt fixes for the spells/rituals later. i also added a fourth building nif so you have 2 good ones and 2 evil ones plus the ring of fire.

some comments:
-the angel summon and crusader summon should be renamed or you will have pedia issues like you did with the skeleton (i will do this in the next update that fixes the txt issues with the spell rituals)
-Promotions that enhance auras (range and targets) are not shown on the unit (tried with adept)
-Combat auras for mages do not work (i.e. no buffs are applied when effects are selected i tried blur and unholy addiction ==> no bonuses on my units, when mouseover)
-i did not find the research screen for spells (maybe it is not yet implemented)
-the normal techtree is bugged once a technology is researched it should turn green, but as of now it stays blue. only starting techs are green.

other issues:
-you did not merge the latest updates to the aristrakh, i will make a new update later this week. if you wish i can include those updates or you apply them in chronological order

 

[Sephi]

sephi i would be careful with the damage line of the air sphere if you do that with most spells they loose their uniqueness and become a magic version of ranged combat. while there is definitely room for such a mechanic i would not homogenize all spells. the characteristic feature of maelstrom was that it affected a lot of tiles. imho the fireline would be much more fitting for that mechanic.
maybe move arid climate to sun instead of air?

in the old system only fireball targeted a single plot. All other damage spells targeted an area. I don't know how many had a range of two, but atleast tsunami also had it. I really don't like it as it discourages any tactical placement of units. Even if you spread out your units they will all be hit by the spell, so best tactic was to simply put all units into one large stack. With the new system it is much better to spread units out or else they are all hit by a single empowered Lightning.

You are right that damage spells should have a unique mechanic, I already added one to lightning spells. All units with weapons are far more vulnerable to lightning damage (take more damage and damage cap is increased). Set it to 50% but it could be increased if necessary.

edit: spells can be moved later in the spell research tree to balance it out.

 

[Sephi]

ok the buildings are done:

Spoiler :

upper left: ring of fire (there are two rings one is rotating clockwise the other counterclockwise)
lower middle: dark ritual (hard to see on the screenshot: it is a purple swirl with lightning here and there)
upper right: growth (just some green blinks who move slightly)

i still have to do the xml work though

look great.