Mana Towers - may change to be more equal?

[Marchwik]

I'm very addicted for this mod and it is my way to fight for more better and better playing.

Today I wanna give our community my point of view about Mana Towers in FFH2

Buildings are not equal and cost 800 hammers so it is not a cheap building.

We have 4 Mana Towers

Tower of Alteration - reduces the chance that your enemies will be able to resist your spells - 10%

Hmm what Am I do now when I invest 800 hammers for that kind of tower?

What that tower gave me? 10% it is not much... I have always maybe 10 mages in my whole one hundred units army,so it is completely useless.And my mages are not more powerful than others without ToA.Worst Tower in mod

So I never build this tower but very often use life mana node to build Aquae Sucellus.

Tower of Divination - 1 free technology

That is the most powerful mana tower in this game For 800 hammers You have it one technology -very often it is very advanced technology so for free U are recieving 2000 to even 10000 science bottles.I always try to use this tower in my game and build divination mana nodes.

Get Mithril Weapons for free and U are world ruler


Tower of Necromancy - increase the amount of skeletons Your empire can summon by 5 and gave You one death mana more

Necromancy sounds good necromancy school mana nodes are very powerful -but this tower .... What is this? One bonus death mana is useless because U already have it that kind of mana node.Maybe for trading for other resources but compare with Tower of Divination this tower give U nothing...increase amount of skeletons to 5? Maybe in earlier game it is useful but not with advanced techs.Skeletons are very good unit only at the beggining.And only 5?Maybe 15 free skeletons give u real boost but 5 it is only a battle meat .This Tower is better than Tower of Elements.


Tower of Elements - increase strenght Your elemental summons by one

Elements mana nodes especially on II and III level for me are the best,but tower of Elements is not worth to investing in this building 800 hammers,1 strenght more give a boost to the summon units but not that much as U thinking.



And now when I choose school mana I alwyas choose divination school - because this Tower is worth to build others are not equal compare to this Tower.Divination tower is great maybe too powerful or maybe it is good solution to increase other Towers for real power use to player.Towers may cost more hammers but when I build them I expect some real bonus,maybe some free great people in town (prophets or engineer) some free good units like liches,wraiths,elementals or cash bonus 1000 and more gold for example.

Now other Tower I'm building only for Tower of Mastery.


Tower power below

no 1: Tower of Divination
no 2: Tower of Necromancy
no 3: Tower of Elements
no 4: Tower of Alteration





I'm courious about others point of view.

 

[deadliver]

Tower of Necromancy - increase the amount of skeletons Your empire can summon by 5 and gave You one death mana more

Necromancy sounds good necromancy school mana nodes are very powerful -but this tower .... What is this? One bonus death mana is useless because U already have it that kind of mana node.Maybe for trading for other resources but compare with Tower of Divination this tower give U nothing...increase amount of skeletons? Maybe in earlier game it is useful but not with advanced techs.Skeletons are very good unit only at the beggining

This tower grants the Strong promotion to undead units as well as increasing the limit of skeletons and providing the death mana. Having multiple Death manas (or mana of any type for that matter) can lead to free spell promotions. I always build this tower when playing Sheiam because necromancy allows me to build Shadow Mana, the only mana I do not have in stock (cos I am AV of course). Sure skeletons aren't that cool in terms of not gaining xp or weapon upgrades but having disposable Str 5 units aren't that shabby and you can get lots if you find a graveyard. The real payoff comes when you can summon Spectres and Wraiths, they have death affinity which makes all those death manas very useful.


Tower of Elements also grants strong to Elementals.

edit: BTW I do like the idea of the Tower of Necromancy allowing you to get hordes of skellies!

 

[Marchwik]

Now when I'm playing nation with evil trait the best solution for me is build and use Divination mana and build Infernal Grimoire to get 2 free technologies

edit: BTW I do like the idea of the Tower of Necromancy allowing you to get hordes of skellies!

it is also my dream but to realize with Calabim when U produce many Vampires with Death I or II level

Tower of Elements also grants strong to Elementals.

I'm building Infernal Grimoire to get first free tech to Mithril Weapon path and after that Tower of Divination to choose Mithril Weapons for free. it is better solution than Tower of Elements

 

[deadliver]

Honestly I only ever build the Necromancy and Divination towers.

 

[Marchwik]

Honestly I only ever build the Necromancy and Divination towers.

Of course only this two Towers are useful and it is the reason that I made this thread

 

[Zechnophobe]

The problem with the Elemental tower, is that it doesn't really give a wide variety of benefits, since you rarely are going to use many different elemental summons, and all of them have affinity, which means you could have simply built more of that kind of node to get the same, but better, effect.

 

[Marchwik]

Tower of Elementals is too poor and useless compare with the most powerful Elemental manas in this game.

I always try to have it one elemental node especially Air node,Mages with AIR II and Death spells are most powerful for me.

 

[vivictius]

I thought the Elemental tower also strengthened Fireballs, as the Amurites I get quite a bit of use from that.

Have they been balanced so they take the same number of mana types to make?

 

[Kael]

So any suggestions for new Tower of Alteration or Tower of Elements powers?

 

[Nor'easter]

Well, kind of a simple suggestion, but you could have the various towers (not just Alteration and Elements) provide a) free XP to arcane units (cumulative with each tower) or b) one or more free promotions for arcane units (again, cumulative with each tower), or c) one or more additional mana types, the way the Tower of Necromancy does.

I guess as a threshold matter it might be helpful for players to give feedback on the extent to which they shoot for building the various towers. In my case, for example, I more often focus on particular mana types I think will be helpful in my game, rather than aiming for a particular tower. Occasionally, if I'm one mana type short for a particular tower, I might build that last mana node rather than a different mana node, but usually not. Just my two cents.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Tower of elementalism makes water elementals positively wicked.

 

[c.fe]

So any suggestions for new Tower of Alteration or Tower of Elements powers?

Proposal for the Tower of Alteration:
Alteration with Body, Life, Enchantment and Nature as their mana spheres seems mostly to be about enhancing things and people. So a tower devoted to alteration could give:
+1 / +1 in all cities
Every new unit in the owner's civilization has a ~10% chance to get one of the following:
* combat I (enhanced body)
* march (enhanced healing/life energy)
* enchanted blade/flamming arrows/poisoned blade if applicable (enchanted weapon)
* ranger (enhanced working with nature)

where ranger is a new promotion that gives +10% strength in forests/jungles/ancient forests and on hills (or perhaps a "can pass through all terrain" ability).

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

i like that idea for alteration.

for elements id suggest having all units in your empire (or even just arcane units) have a chance of getting 50% elemental damage resistance, on top of the strength promotion to elemental summons

 

[orgonebox]

Here's a couple of suggestions:

Tower of Alteration:

20% less likely to resist spells
And/Or free metamagic node

Tower of Elementalism:

+1 movement for elemental summons in addition to strong promotion
OR grants stoneskin promotion to all mages.


Part of the problem with the tower of Elements is that it worked back when Conjurers still had the bulk of level 2 summons. Given that a player might not have enough nodes to build any of the towers until later in the game, the bonus for the ToE should be beefed up a little to give a decisive edge to the player that has cultivated archmages, as well as provide some protection against the hordes of assassins and shadows the AI likes to pump out now.

 

[Blackmantle]

On Tower of Alteration: Maybe make it amplify the powers of the Mana needed to build it (in addition to the current effect)? Like an additional +1 happy for each enchantment mana, +1 health for each life Mana and doubled extra heal-rate for each body mana your civ controlls.

(Could even imagine a doubling of the passive effects of all mana types exculding! affinity and free spells. But that might be a bit over the top and make metamagic abuse very worthwhile. But that might be ok for such a building given the price... Mana doesn't come in Truckloads anyways...)



On Tower of Elements: Maybe improve all elemental summons by the strong espect of each of the manas required to build it. (so not just Water Summons are amplified in a real hefty way.) By mastering the power of the elements you imbue all your elemental summons with aspects of all elements your civ mastered or something like that.

That could mean for example:
+1 Movement for all elemental summons (perhaps even via Flight emulating Air or Horselord or something else Speedboosting?
Mobility is not all such a good choice for that thanks to spell extension sadly. Flying doesn't benefit Air Elementals so thats perhaps not all such a good idea.
But hasted might be the promotion of choice since its not usable on nonlivings normally / additional speed on short time summons is always useful and even in 3 Turns for summoners it shouldn't matter all that much beyond first turn most of the time.),
+ an additional small ammount / low cap of collateral for all elemental summons (need not be extreme, surely not so much to obsolete fire elementals and hopefully further amplifying them. Doable by barrage 1 to all Elemental Summons for example. Or whould that be to much / doesn't that work codewise?)
+ small physical / normal damage resistence to all elemental summons (which might be a way to set earth elementals apart in its own right.). Something like 10% or somesuch...
+ perhaps amplifying each elemantals affinity further? (That last one might be a tad bit over the top but maybe the costs justify such a reward?)


And Earth Elementals should receive something more or less unique to them imo besides just high strength (like bombardement / geruilla 2 / small amount of resistance to normal damage or something like that... Nothing over the top though. High Strength is not all that shabby if gained early. Still lacks a bit due to the solid competition from all 3 other alternatives now.)
Edit on that aspect: doh! Stoneskin for earth Elementals seems like the perfect match to accompish just that and is very much fitting flavorwise. More than for anyone or anything else...
If only it could be made to last...
(Now that leads to the question: With Stoneskin from Earth 2 now self-only and easily recastable and otherwise on rather powerful/should be powerful monsters whouldn't it just make sense to make this spell/promotion permanent now in any sense? Whould surely help dragons becoming stronger and stoneskin ogres sound all fine with it in my book even if thats a hefty up for them.)
Still perhaps might be! not a good idea for the tower itself in that might! be to hefty (and whouldn't help doubly if Earth-Elementals whould get that perk by default. There a small physical resistance as mentioned above might do the trick. That Promotion might be a nice addition to the FFH2 anyways imo, provided the requirement is taxing enough. With another tip for the drill line besides blitz or the likes.)



Necromancy is allready rather nice imo since to the Tier 2 +3 affinity Summons and rather diverse undead available if you exploit it rightly (especially for civs which favor death mana anyways. )
Especially since Mokkas Cauldron (good and early source of flesh-golems) comes from the same tech and there is another wonder which gives a "free" source of an additional death mana further amplifying that towers effect. (Which can also provide for the prerequisite. As might the sepulcher. So this tower is rather "easy" to build in comparison anyways... with 2 of the shrines + rather interesting ones at that by buildability as well as effect, providing another 2 of the prerequisites.)
Perhaps makeing the two temporal death-mana summons last an additional turn might be a sensible rather small-scale improvement. (Then on the other hand that might just infringe a bit to much on Summoner even though 4 Turn Death-Summons might still be very neat / worthwhile for such civs.)
Another possible small-scale perk might be to extend the boost via strong-promotion to demons in addition to undead. (that improvement sounds very appropriate in my book in that its quite relevant for civs who are likely to use that tower but not over the top.)



Sorry i can't get more definate on if things whould be to strong or not and pin down that spot.
Balance in those Levels of power is a rather frickle thing... Perhaps whould need a bit of testing.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Agreed. Being able to summon a maximum of 28 water elementals in a turn with ONE (hero) caster is absolutely amazing. (Twincast + Spellstaff = 4 Strong Elementals, 4 strong becomes 8 normal, 8 normal becomes 16 weak). Come to think of it... Keelyn + Hemah = what, 84 water elementals attacking in one turn, just from Hemah and his puppets?

Tower of Alteration is only really useful for one thing. Domination. That's the only spell where resistance actually matters, and every little bit helps. Personally I tend to go for whichever tower I have most of the mana for already from palace/shrines/features. In terms of overall priority, I'd say Divination, Necromancy, Alteration, Elements.

Divination: Free tech. Enough said. Mithril Working or Strength of Will FTW.
Necromancy: Free mana? Are you seriously bashing free death mana? Death is already one of the best mage spheres available. One more death mana means either a)you don't need to waste a node on it, b)your adepts now start with Death I, or c)your mages now start with Death II. The only reason I might even CONSIDER avoiding the Tower of Necromancy is if I've got powerful neighbors who don't like Death/Entropy mana. Oh and all your undead get Strong. Seriously though, free Death I means your adepts can specialize as necromancers. Even 0-xp adepts would be Combat II. Nothing like infinitely replaceable, 6 (5+20%) strength fodder. And as your adepts gain XP, they get stronger skeletons and eventually spectres, which have Death affinity. Seriously, Tower of Necromancy is awesome.
Alteration: Useful if you like Domination. Otherwise, meh.
Elements: Pretty useless. Only non-Archmage spell that benefits is Fireball, which granted is pretty good but still. Water Elementals are a pretty good special case though.

 

[Kael]

I also just found out that the -10% resistance enemy units is supposed to get isnt even being applied. The tower of alteration actually doesnt do anything.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

I also just found out that the -10% resistance enemy units is supposed to get isnt even being applied. The tower of alteration actually doesnt do anything.

Really? Wow. Never actually noticed .

Would making it apply a promotion to arcane units in the city that grants -10% resistance make it work? Probably more complicated than you would like, but it should work, right?

 

[cabbagemeister]

What about:

Tower of Elements: +1 duration to summoned elementals (a mini-Summoner trait)

Tower of Alteration: promotions gained from body/enchantment/nature/life have double effects (i.e. haste is +2 move, enchanted blade is +40%, poison blade is +2 attack)

 

[xanaqui42]

Perhaps one could consider the Tower of Elements affecting the damage caps of spells of those elements?

Perhaps Tower of Divination should have a cap at a number of research points (like a great person does), to reduce its power to be closer to the other towers?

@Marchwik-
The old Tower of Alteration was more effective (it worked through 0.24, to my recollection), so it wasn't too bad for armies of mostly mages and/or (offensive) priests, but I'd agree that it was never the best tower.

I think you underestimate the power of Skeletons or a Necromantic strategy, probably because you apparently aren't used to using large numbers of mages to summon hordes of undead to do your combat for you. Simply put, enough summons can take out nearly anything, and at a very small cost to you. Significant numbers of Death affinity units alone can make the Tower of Necromancy worthwhile.