Mana Towers - may change to be more equal?

[cyther]

Add a fourth Tier of weapon upgrades. Towers provide a weapon upgrade which gives affinity for the base mana required for the tower Maybe a fifth tier so Mastery can upgrade you to affinity with all mana types


Could make the new affinities be rank 1 & 2 so that mages can gain these 2, but not others.

Finally, an answer to how building the tower of mastery is victory condition

 

[jimi12]

make the tower of elements pop out a free permanent elemental every few turns, like a planar gate

 

[OzzyKP]

I agree the towers could be boosted (especially alteration), but the general concept is good. We don't need a million new spells.

 

[Valerarren]

Other ideas for the tower of alteration:

1. Improves the bonuses you get from mana for all mana in the sphere, for ALL cities (like an additional +1 hammer from enchantment in addition to the +1 happyness?, nature gives a +1 food, etc.) This could alternately apply to the tower of elements instead

2. Perhaps it could unlock an additional building (in all cities?) Like a building that gives a random affinity promotion to all units built there?

3. The building could unlock some series of events? (100% chance of starting but it continues with a 10% chance for each additional turn?) Perhaps there are several possible outcomes (from gaining a unit, master of the tower as mentioned before, to other things?) Perhaps there could be other negative consequences as well (spreading hell terrain into your land around the city, relations hits with certain nations / religions, etc?) Perhaps some chains require you to have certain mana at certain points, or require you to spend gold, sacrifice a node, etc.

 

[Zechnophobe]

So, I like the idea that each 'tower' increases the strength of the spheres of spells that lead to it. Based on that, let's identify what makes each sphere special in question:

Elements (Air/Water/Earth/Fire) all have Tier 3 Summons. So the original idea of increasing the strength of summons makes sense, but isn't practical because of the affinity these summons already have. So, let me throw out some ideas:

1) Elementals gain the Spirit Guide Promotion. Seems too strong perhaps, so maybe something similar that gives a smaller % of XP.

2) Elementals gain City Raider 1. Roughly comparable to the existing bonus, but stacks a bit nicer.

3) Elementals get +1 Affinity in their element type.

4) Gives any caster casting a summon spell, a 10% chance to twin cast the summon. This could be a bit of fun random power, and definitely a bit more unique.


Okay, so what about Alteration? (Nature, body, life, enchantment). Tier 3 is a mish mash. We have a bit of teraforming, a bit of support. Yikes. In fact, none of these even include a resistable spell to begin with, so maybe it's a good thing we are changing it. All of these, however, have some pretty potent unit based effects. Nature and Enchantment both pump a class of unit. Body has both haste and Regen, life has ress. So something focusing on making units stronger would make sense. Some thoughts:

1) Your units heal 10% after any successful combat.

2) Allows your units to take the "Altered" promotion, which requires Magic resistance. It gives +1 Movement and +20% attack strength.

3) All units built in the city with the Tower have +6 XP, and Recon Units get Poisoned Blade automatically, and Archers gain Flame Arrows automatically.

4) All units built in your empire start with a "Mystic Concoction" promotion, that gives them the ability to "Drink" the concoction to regain all Health, and gain +15% strength for 1 turn.

5) The tower does nothing but grant +10 Great Commander Points.

 

[smusebaer]

I think that the tower of Tower of Necromancy doesn´t fitt in. Every other tower is a mix of different Magic. The ToN only requires different mana to build. It just grants Deathmana effects. Call it the tower of evil, or the dark tower, or the forbitten tower. And it should not grant only necromancy effects.

I like the idea of improved summoning (+1 Turn ) for elements.

And I don´t think that the tower of divination should grant tech (exept it´s something another player has, the owner spyed on ). Something like reveal the map or reveal hidden units in your Empire would be great.

 

[uberfish]

Necromancy is maybe too centred on death as opposed to its other elements (of course everyone uses death summons anyway, so not so much of a problem)

I think I'd like to see "all elemental sphere summons get +1 turn duration" for elementalism, or else "all elemental sphere summons get +50% strength", clean and simple as all 4 elements have a summon. Could do this for necromancy too.

Alteration: what about allowing the player to raise or lower 1 plot per turn, changing its terrain type (water -> flatland <-> hills <- mountain, don't let the player wall themselves off since the AI can't handle that currently)

 

[Jarlaxle135]

Where'd you get that idea, my modmod thread? I proposed this several months ago (well, with unique spells instead of equipment), and started implementing it in some unreleased versions. I'm too busy to work on it now, and my ideas have changed a bit anyway.

Actually, I posted this idea many months ago myself. Whenever a new thread to update the towers comes up, I just resubmit my idea. Perhaps you got the idea from me!

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

is kael and team reading this? any of these ideas any good?

 

[deadliver]

How about having the towers provide the associated bonuses for having a mana type but not actually the mana, based on the needed mana. Basically the tower would amplify the effects of the mana needed to build them. The towers would provide mana for those types that do not give positive passive effects such as Death, Shadow, Fire, and Water.

So...Tower of Divination (pre-reqs law, mind, spirit and sun) would provide: -5% maintenance, +3% research and +5% GPP rate. I would also have this tower provide +1 sun mana. Perhaps also +1 free tech.

Tower of Necromany: emulates Chaos and Entropy mana (+2% mutation, -5% to enemy healing within home territory), +1 death mana...tough decision +1 shadow mana or Strong promo for undead? +5 to skeleton summon limit. Perhaps give a chance of spawning units.

Tower of Elements: Strong promotion for elementals, increased mine discovery chances (from Earth mana), +1 Fire, +1 Water, +1 Air. Perhaps give a chance of spawning units.

Tower of Alteration: +5% heal rate within borders, +1 happy, +1 health, +1 Nature mana. -10% to enemy magic resistance. Perhaps could act as a watered down Crown building which gives units in city better magic resistance.

 

[xienwolf]

I'd love to see more things done along the lines of the Nox Noctis and the Dies Dieie or whatnot. Things which make someone who enters your borders suddenly play by your rules.


Towers would be an excellent method to start introducing more such effects. Rituals would be another nice area.


As for precise effects: Meh, can't think of much right now really.

Maybe the Tower of Elements causes all units in your territory (not your own) to move 1 space per turn max (even if they had flying and 20 Move)

Tower of Alteration causes all units in your territory (even your own) to have a base strength of 5/5.

Tower of Necromancy causes all your units in your territory to withdraw from combat at 10% health (rather than continue the battle to the point of death).

Tower of Divination could cause any unit which dies in your territory to provide beakers to you AND trigger a Spirit Guide effect for your units (even if you didn't own the unit which died, or even if you DID own that unit and it HAD spirit guide - Thus it passes 100% of current XP, split to 2 random units).

Tower of Mastery would reveal the entire map to you. Not like Omniscience does, but making it so you have the same visibility as if the entire world was your territory. You can zoom in on every city and view production details, you can see all units everywhere, and even the normally hidden resources like Pearls will appear for you.

 

[Nor'easter]

I'm glad others have brought up the Tower of Mastery as well. I've thought for a long time that it should have some in-game effect, like the final Altar of the Luonnotar does. Some possibilities: 1) start a golden age, 2) grants arcane units extra XP, 3) provides additional mana. I like Xienwolf's idea about a kind of uber-omniscience.

 

[Marchwik]

I'm courious what Kael do now ?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

uber-omniscience being "reveal all map" right? yeah, I really like that one too.

 

[deadliver]

I'm glad others have brought up the Tower of Mastery as well. I've thought for a long time that it should have some in-game effect, like the final Altar of the Luonnotar does. Some possibilities: 1) start a golden age, 2) grants arcane units extra XP, 3) provides additional mana. I like Xienwolf's idea about a kind of uber-omniscience.

LOL Just take the effect from MoM, your opponents can no longer access mana! Lets see how they like that...there is already a spell can banish demons, thats pretty nasty why not make a mana equivalent?

 

[Ahriman]

I'd like to see benefits related to spheres, and also benefits that are tied to having some of that kind of mana. So the tower of sphere X is more useful to me if I'm using that sphere rather than if I just built the mana types I needed to build it, then Dispel Magiced the nodes to raw and built over them for building the next.

So, the Towers of Magic *either* are part of a Tower of Master victory condition where you're trying to get them all, *or* are worth building for their bonus even if you aren't pursuing a Tower victory. Also better for the AI, which is never going to complete the Tower of Mastery.

I'd like to see this:
Tower of Elements spawns with X% chance a Random permanent elemental summon. Chance of summoning is dependent on the number of elemental mana you have, and the relative types. Eg suppose that each mana gives a 2% chance per turn of spawning that elemental, so with 3 fire mana, 2 air and 1 earth you will have a 6% chance for a fire elemental, 4% for an air elemental and 2% for an earth elemental, for total of 12% chance of getting a permanent summon per turn.

Tower of alteration provides +1 happiness in all cities if you have any enchantment mana, +1 food in all cities if you have any nature mana, +1 hammer in all cities if you have any body mana, etc.

Something similar for the other Towers. It doesn't help that Entropy is utterly useless.

I don't like the idea of Towers that only have benefits that effect Archmages (like Elements is now) or that have very narrow benefits. I'd like to see the Towers give benefits that would help the AI, and the AIs could be hardcoded to pursue particular mana paths so as to be able to build one of the towers. I'd like to see the benefits be a function of mana availability, so that the AI gets some benefits from actually having mana access (at the moment, given how bad they are at magic, their mana is almost useless to them).

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

With their existing abilities, I suggest using the planer gate code and allow the towers produce a permanent weak unit/item every so many turns with a small chance of producing a permanent powerful unit/item.

I: Tower of Necromancy
1. Basic Skeleton every few turns
2. With a small chance of a Succubus

II: Tower of Elements
1. Basic lightning Elemental every few turns
2. With a small chance of a Sand Lion

III: Tower of Alteration
1. Basic Healing Salve every few turns
2. With a small chance of a Golden Hammer

IV: Tower of Divination
1. Basic Hawk every few turns
2. With a small chance of a Floating Eye

 

[Mithrus]

Hmm, seems like most are focused on the summons for Elementalism, but I'd like to see some passive effect for the non-summon elemental spells as well. It may need to be specific to each spell, so each one gets a bit better (less resists, higher damage cap, etc).

For alteration, many of the ideas are good, so I don't have anything new to add there. I do strongly agree the towers should give a bonus exp to arcane units (+2 sounds about right). If you want to borrow a bit from Dragonlance, allowing the towers to provide teleportation from one city to another (that also has a tower) could be very useful.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Letting Tower of Alteration have mages affect hero units at full strength would be nice, also. Still a niche, but I can maelstrom Barbatos over and over and have each one only knock him down 1-2% tops right now.