Making a new Magic System Part III: Terraforming

[hbar]

I liked the way Alpha Centauri handled new rivers - you could "Drill to Aquifer" nearly anywhere, choosing the start of the river, but gravity took care of the rest, so there was a balance of planning and randomness to it. Of course, Civ doesn't have the active heightmaps (why not!) of AC, so that might be impossible to emulate.

Will terraformed land have any upkeep to it? It would probably require too much resources to track 'former' tiles, but I like the idea of a once grand magical empire decaying to its mundane state after all the mana nodes were razed. Or the ramifications of redirecting mana to the war effort and having your deserts slowly reappear.

 

[Tarquelne]

Will terraformed land have any upkeep to it? It would probably require too much resources to track 'former' tiles, but I like the idea of a once grand magical empire decaying

Maybe just a counter tracking the amount of positive terraforming? When the mana runs out the counter could run down, applying negative terraforming as it goes.

Such a counter could also be used for meta-magic type attacks on terraforming.

I really like the idea, so long as I don't have to code it.

 

[Valkrionn]

I would honestly say that any terrain change should have a mana cost. Mid-high cost up front, low per-turn upkeep (change a plot here and there without much trouble, but change a region and you're paying for it). Easiest way (to also have better rituals with less cost) would be to have a variable stored on the player for the perturn cost. Increment that for each new plot terraformed equal to the amount set by the ritual, decrement it when the ritual is halted.

 

[tesb]

an upkeep for already terraformed land smells like additional waiting time between turn, which i don't like at all. imho an high upfront cost should be enough. sephi already stated that mana will have some decay, so hoarding enough mana to just pay for the terraforming ritual should be costly enough.

also it woulde be quite annoying just to pay a lot of mana income only for already terraformed land and sense it doesn't make either, young padawan

when i magically raise a mountain why should i pay mana for it to stay in place?


edit: my 666th post, beware the end is nigh

 

[esvath]

Well, I think there should be upkeep for some rituals. Sanctify which prevents hell terrains spreading should be given upkeep. When you can't pay it, the ritual is cancelled and the hell terrains will spread into your land.

Curses (terraform other player's land) also need upkeep, IMHO, to reflect the continuous efforts and magic spent in maintaining the curse.

 

[Calavente]

Well, upkeep for terraforming does not seems interesting in a gaming sense.
it seems realistic but IMO not interesting.

I mean : a building, once built is built forever in a city, isn't it?
In reality you would need upkeep, like devoted to maintain the building in topshape.
In CIII the buildings each had some upkeep. and could be sold/lost when you didn't want to spend the money there.
Terraforming spell with upkeep look a bit like that.

In cIV, buildings are permanent. The "maintenance" effect went to a "number of city" / "city size" / "distance from palace" / "inflation".
I thus think that going back to a cIII way of thinking for rituals would be unfun...

I think too that a low "terraforming cost per tile" with a maintance cost per terraformed tile would be unfun.
I have 3 propositions :
1) each ritual makes the next ritual a bit more expensive (like +1 or +2% or better : +1 or +2 "mana credit") ;
2) rise the terraforming cost per tile.
3) each constructively terraformed tile cost a bit more to terraform than the precedent one (kinda the same idea than for rituals, but limited to the terrafomrings rituals : like +1 or +2% or better : +1 or +2 "mana credit") ; explanation : each time you terraform, you change extensively the weather, the eosystem ...Etc. as a consequence, the next terraforming needs a bit more work as you have to take into account a previous disturbance. (no rise of cost for aggressive terraforming as you don't care what happens to the neighbour)

I think that chosing where you want to spent your mana credits is much more fun than spending it and then asking yourself : I want to use a new powerful spell : which spell will I stop using : what is the less bad choice / less bad option ?

So instead of chosing the best option for spending your credits the choice is transformed into the less bad option

EDIT : @esvath : for sanctify it is not really a "maintenance fee" it is just like if the ritual is reissued each time a corrupted tile appears. An upkeep is then logical. It can can even be made not as an upkeep, but as an automatically deduced amount of mana every time a hell terrain tile appears and is removed.
If you lower the AC, eliminate all hell tiles and then cut "sanctify", the hell tiles won't appear again : thus it is not really an maintenance for maintening the converted tiles but an upkeep, as if you had 20adepts automatically launching "sanctify" on hell tiles every turns.
Even nowadays, hell spreading needs to be redone every odd turns with an adept if you want to protect a tile. thus an upkeep is not strange
But for a terraformed tile it seems strange to have a "maintenance" that, if lost, reverts the tile back.
For civilization automatic terraforming, why not.)

my 0.2

 

[tesb]

Well, I think there should be upkeep for some rituals. Sanctify which prevents hell terrains spreading should be given upkeep. When you can't pay it, the ritual is cancelled and the hell terrains will spread into your land.

if sanctify is implemented like this, which i hope, it should be a global enchantment, not a terraform ritual.

Curses (terraform other player's land) also need upkeep, IMHO, to reflect the continuous efforts and magic spent in maintaining the curse.

why? i cast a firestorm and burn your lands, why should i keep paying for the damage i dealt?

i don't care that much for game aspect of paying upkeep but more for the computing time of turns. the slimness of wildmana was what has drawn me to it in the first place

 

[DonQuigleone]

I think Physical changes should be permanent (for instance plain-> hill or mountain) but climate changes should require upkeep. I don't know about modding Civ IV, but culd you simply store a variable for every tile for it's climate? For instance an Ice Tile is 1, Tundra 2, Grass 3, Plain 4, Desert 5 (this would be in ascending "heat level") and simply charge an upkeep for the level of difference between what it is, and how it started. Simply have a seperate variable maintained that sums difference between the present situation and the original. If it was done without absolute values, you could get the situation where you change some plains down to Grass, and another few up to Desert, and they "cancel out" (you've transferred moisture from one province to another, with minor upkeep required).

 

[Tarquelne]

an upkeep for already terraformed land smells like additional waiting time between turn, which i don't like at all.

Can't argue with that, though the cost should be weighed against the benefit.

also it woulde be quite annoying just to pay a lot of mana income only for already terraformed land

How odd. I think that sounds fun.

I suppose either it's a matter of opinion... Or, since I'm really quite confident about what I think is fun, you're just completely wrong.

and sense it doesn't make either, young padawan

when i magically raise a mountain why should i pay mana for it to stay in place?

The short answer is "To keep it from falling back down." But I'm puzzled Didn't you read Kylorin's third codex on the "Impropriety of Essifthian Changes"? It explains the whole thing far better than I could.

Now, the ongoing mana cost could be dropped if not enough people think it's fun, if the code takes too long to run, if Sephi simply doesn't feel like coding it, or if it causes intractable balance problems... I'm sure the list could go on.

But I'm shocked that you're actually calling the reality of mana maintenance for terraforming rituals into question! *Shocked*

 

[tesb]

The short answer is "To keep it from falling back down." But I'm puzzled Didn't you read Kylorin's third codex on the "Impropriety of Essifthian Changes"? It explains the whole thing far better than I could.

Now, the ongoing mana cost could be dropped if not enough people think it's fun, if the code takes too long to run, if Sephi simply doesn't feel like coding it, or if it causes intractable balance problems... I'm sure the list could go on.

But I'm shocked that you're actually calling the reality of mana maintenance for terraforming rituals into question! *Shocked*

So there is the problem you are follwoing the advice of an icompetent wizard
Yes in the old days you would keep paying mana to keep the mountain in place, that is because you forgot to conjure additional rock beneath the lifted mountain. if you do that your initial manacost is higher but you don't have to pay upkeep
i am amazed that your are still following the old school of spellcraft tzktzk

edit: also how dare you defy my 666th post

 

[Valkrionn]

an upkeep for already terraformed land smells like additional waiting time between turn, which i don't like at all. imho an high upfront cost should be enough. sephi already stated that mana will have some decay, so hoarding enough mana to just pay for the terraforming ritual should be costly enough.

also it woulde be quite annoying just to pay a lot of mana income only for already terraformed land and sense it doesn't make either, young padawan

when i magically raise a mountain why should i pay mana for it to stay in place?


edit: my 666th post, beware the end is nigh

I never said anything about plot changes costing upkeep. Just terrain/feature changes (maybe not features).

You should pay because IMO you would be actively maintaining the new climate. If you want the benefit, you pay the cost.

As for your point about turn time.... Frankly, such a small addition would never noticeably affect turn times. Like I'd said before, all the maintenance could be stored in a single variable on the player. That moves virtually all upkeep to just when actually casting the ritual, and when halting it, when you need to change that variable... All that would be done each turn would be checking that variable, and decrementing your mana cost. I don't believe that's intensive in any way.

I think Physical changes should be permanent (for instance plain-> hill or mountain) but climate changes should require upkeep. I don't know about modding Civ IV, but culd you simply store a variable for every tile for it's climate? For instance an Ice Tile is 1, Tundra 2, Grass 3, Plain 4, Desert 5 (this would be in ascending "heat level") and simply charge an upkeep for the level of difference between what it is, and how it started. Simply have a seperate variable maintained that sums difference between the present situation and the original. If it was done without absolute values, you could get the situation where you change some plains down to Grass, and another few up to Desert, and they "cancel out" (you've transferred moisture from one province to another, with minor upkeep required).

If Sephi has merged FlavorMod's Climate system, that is not only already done, it is done better than you described. For one, it is not simply heat; The system has two axes, Heat and Humidity. Swamp? Same as Grass, temp wise, just wetter. You can create actual climates in the xml, and then assign terrains to each climate. As the climate changes, the terrain automatically updates.... And it stores how far the climate has shifted, so when upkeep is gone (not in the borders of a climateform civ like the Malakim anymore), it reverts to the original climate. It also hasn't been intensive at all; It's used in both RifE and Orbis.

Can't argue with that, though the cost should be weighed against the benefit.

How odd. I think that sounds fun.

I suppose either it's a matter of opinion... Or, since I'm really quite confident about what I think is fun, you're just completely wrong.

The short answer is "To keep it from falling back down." But I'm puzzled Didn't you read Kylorin's third codex on the "Impropriety of Essifthian Changes"? It explains the whole thing far better than I could.

Now, the ongoing mana cost could be dropped if not enough people think it's fun, if the code takes too long to run, if Sephi simply doesn't feel like coding it, or if it causes intractable balance problems... I'm sure the list could go on.

But I'm shocked that you're actually calling the reality of mana maintenance for terraforming rituals into question! *Shocked*

I completely agree. Isn't Civ4 as a whole a game about weighing the benefit of one choice against the benefit of another? If you want to terraform, you pay for it. The cost should not be so high up front that you never accumulate the points, but as something requiring a continued input, it should cost maintenance. As should summons..... And you seem perfectly alright with that one!

 

[tesb]

I completely agree. Isn't Civ4 as a whole a game about weighing the benefit of one choice against the benefit of another? If you want to terraform, you pay for it. The cost should not be so high up front that you never accumulate the points, but as something requiring a continued input, it should cost maintenance. As should summons..... And you seem perfectly alright with that one!

i can't wait for sephi to start an argument with you, .... again
just wait a bit i am making new popcorn

 

[Tarquelne]

Yes in the old days you would keep paying mana to keep the mountain in place, that is because you forgot to conjure additional rock beneath the lifted mountain. if you do that your initial manacost is higher but you don't have to pay upkeep

Have you checked the mana costs of deep-subsurface conjuration? Alteration of the surface itself has a far better ROI over reasonable timeframes. Plus you don't get nearly as many long-term side effects, which can be very, very costly in terms of lives and treasure. After you've taken over the world you can afford to do it right.



Point made? There's no reason either of us can't BS on this subject through eternity, which is what I was hinting at in the previous post. Can we stop trying to argue the shape of magic from "realism" now?

DonQ

I think Physical changes should be permanent (for instance plain-> hill or mountain) but climate changes should require upkeep.

That'd be a nice distinction. I'd like it if terraforming weren't always completely predictable, and if multiple civs could compete or pull-together on things like climate then terraforming could quickly become quite a mini-game in itself. That sounds like a lot of work, too. But for someone else, so it's not a "real" problem.

 

[Sephi]

Will terraformed land have any upkeep to it?

terraformed land will not have any upkeep. However you might be forced to continuosly spend mana on terraforming or climate Global enchantments if you wage a war against a leader who is specialized in hostile terraformings.

 

[Calavente]

well...
maybe terraforming doesn't have a cost, but enhance the long forgotten "climat goes to hell" mechanism of vanilla civ ?

I will explain again my opinion on "upkeep for terraformed tiles" :

any building you built doesn't need any upkeep to keep it from decaying. In real life, if you ever looked at the "maintenance budget" of any townhouse, you'll see how much is needed to make any simple building continue working.
So if building don't need upkeep, why would "builder-spells" need an upkeep ?

For "summons" and maybe even "buff spell" it is different. They are weapons. Any normal unit has some upkeep in gold (you just have some free upkeep for each city, and some civics remove the free upkeep), so summons having some upkeep in "mana credit" is in the same logic. and it can even be understood for buffs spells (well maybe only as a way to represent that the adept/mage is continuously maintaining/recasting the spell)
For "terraforming" it seems "bizarre" and unfun.

Maybe you could have some other spells that are city-centered : like "waterII" : conjuring fresh water : creates a building in the city acting as an aqueduct, blocks avility to build aqueduct, cannot be summoned if aqueduct in city.
Advantage : no need for tech for aqueduct, no need to spend hammers on a health building instead of units.
liabilities : mana-credit upkeep. When no more credit the magical aqueduct disappear.

But terraforming... please let it be free !! being a, advanced ritual + being expensive should be enough to balance it.

and think about the playability : you see a full grassland ljosalfar empire ; you invade and lo! all those fat juicy grassland turns into plains and even desert after a few turn ... or else you have to pay a tremendrous upkeep to maintain the terraforming... and what if you don't have the terraforming magical techs ? what if you have no magic ? what if you focused your strategie around submerging the world with steel and have few arcanes abilities ? what if you can't ?
and you exclaim "If only I had known before!"

HOW COULD YOU HAVE KNOWN ??? If you had known that the terrain was in reality worthless, would you have invaded those now or would you have started with another civ? !

something that can screw you in such a way might be better not implanted. I'd rather have no terraforming ritual ever available than have such a disagreable surprise.

 

[Calavente]

I've just seen sephi's post..
gooooooood !!

That's a thing I can understand and play with.. spending lot and lot of mana to spread desert in my neighbour's empire and countering his own agressive spells !

 

[Tarquelne]

However you might be forced to continuosly spend mana on terraforming or climate Global enchantments if you wage a war against a leader who is specialized in hostile terraformings.

I'm putting "Specialize in hostile terraformings" on my To-Do list.

 

[esvath]

Reading Sephi's post, is it correct for me to conclude this way?

1. You finish Blessed Springs ritual, making your land more fertile (all tiles turned into grass). The cost is 300 mana. You do not need to pay anymore than 300 mana.
2. The Sheaim finish Scorched Earth ritual, targeting your land the turn after. All of your newly-turned-into-grass tiles then become desert tiles.
3. You rebuild (recast?) Blessed Springs, spending another 300 mana and 10 turns, to turn your desert tiles into grass.
4. The Sheaim finish their Scorched Earth one turn after your ritual completed. Your land become desert again.
5. Rinse and repeat.

Well, IMHO, that is too exhausting. First, you lost 300 mana and 10 turns each time. Second, you have to dedicate at least one city to produce ritual.

I propose that :

1. You finish Blessed Springs ritual, making your land more fertile (all tiles turned into grass). The cost is 300 mana. Upkeep = 10 mana, automatically subtracted from your mana-per-turn income. It's just like city maintenance automatically reduce your gold-per-turn income.
2. The Blessed Springs is now an active enchantment. Your land can not be targeted by hostile curses in contrast with Blessed Springs.
3. The Sheaim build Scorched Earth, targeting you. Since you finish Blessed Springs a turn earlier, they can not finish their ritual and gain 80% mana spent (just like you build a wonder and the Khazad completed it a turn before you. You get some recompensation)
4. You don't need to build Blessed Springs, as long as you are able to pay 10 mana (again, subtracted automatically at each turn).
5. If you are unable to pay, the enchantment wears off. The next turn, you can be the target of hostile Scorched Earth.

That, IMHO, better system. It's involving less micro, makes ritual cheaper and you don't loose mana.

 

[Silaor]

Well, IMHO, that is too exhausting. First, you lost 300 mana and 10 turns each time. Second, you have to dedicate at least one city to produce ritual.

1) We know that rituals won't be produced by cities.
2) I don't think we know anything about the ritual's building time. If you have the mana/faith available, maybe it is instant ?

 

[esvath]

1) We know that rituals won't be produced by cities.

What!? Really!? I must be missing this information.

2) I don't think we know anything about the ritual's building time. If you have the mana/faith available, maybe it is instant ?

Well, if not produced by cities, then it might be instant and my whole argument is moot