Merge Sorcery and Summoning?

[Tarquelne]

I think part of the reason unyielding order might seem weaker is that you had a limit?

You're completely correct.

That is to say, I was thinking the same thing.

I like the idea of UO as priest level spell. 1 Confessor + 1 UO per city sounds like a well run, if possibly soul-crushingly oppressive, empire. Nice dark fantasy. But I think UO as it is now is just too powerful for that to work from a game-play perspective.

I wouldn't like to see the spell nerfed, though. It's too cool.
And I _do_ like being forced to chose what I want to do with UO-casting units when they have the national limit: Put them in a city for UO, or in the field to fight.

Bless in the lower slot sounds better to me, too - easier to balance without losing the "feel" of the spell. OTOH, I like the idea that Bless can't be dispelled. OTGH, IMO it's not a big deal compared to Confessors casting UO.

General Question: An Order-centric tech was removed fairly recently. What was it called?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

unquestioning obedience. I don't think any of the actual benefits were removed, just moved to other techs.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I really think that Unyielding Order should be an Order High Priest spell and Bless the confessor spell. I also think that the order (high?) priests need to keep an offensive fire spell too (See Amelanchier's Entry)


The Empyrean really seems to be the religion more closely related to spirit than the Order (Truth seems closer to wisdom than Law does), so I'd probably give them more peaceful and spirit related spells. I'd probably move crown of brilliance to be a free, non-expiring promotion for Luridis (the dative plural form) instead of a spell.


If you would add the needed checks, I'd probably say to make Priests of the Leaves start with Forest Stealth. They should have some forest bonus, maybe just the woodsman1/2 promotions?

How about letting Runes priests move through Peaks? Maybe other Runes units as well. Thematically, I'm not sure Rune Keepers would ever actually leave their chambers under the mountains.



I think a good Force III spell would be one that gave a temporary, removed-by-combat promotion to the caster that made the game ignore the actual combat odds, giving it a 50-50 shot at winning its next combat. Perhaps Force I could grant units in the stack a promotion that gives units resistance to both holy and unholy damage? (seems appropriate for the Grigori)

For Ice, I'd add Frost (turns terrain to tundra, or tundra to snow, maybe even creates the ice feature (or even snow terrain) on water? Preferably use tempTerrainType so the snow melts and the tile warms up eventually), summon Frost Giant (only on snow or tundra. Strong for its level, probably with ice affinity, but unable to enter warmer terrain), and Blizzard (like maelstrom, but with cold damage, also casts frost on all nearby tiles).


For Dimensional (which should not be removed), I'd add a spell that creates a temporary obsidian gate equivalent, and a spell that summons a paradropping transport unit. I still say that the Summoning trait should probably be removed and these promotions could provide duration boosts for summons.


I'd probably make most Creation spells be cross-sphere spells that create new resources (assuming you still have something against true terraforming, like how the AI would never be able to handle it)



I still say you should add "movement-affinity" in addition to the normal strength affinity, and make fair winds grant this instead of just +1 movement. This would be better if you could have fractional affinity (rounded/truncated) so that it could be 2 air mana per movement point, or something like that.

I'm thinking that a weakened version of Rage may be better for the Body 2 spell (rage is Aeron's element more than Cammulos's, isn't it?)

I'd rather leave summon chaos marauder in. There are enough ways to get mutation as it is. I don't want any spells specifically mentioned in the civilopedia (like those summoned by the Lort brothers) to be removed.

I'd also like to see the evil religions' "heal" spell (at least sometimes) cause mutation, and for their "cure disease" to make the diseased unit become a disease carrier instead (at least sometimes), not having the ill effects of the disease but still spreading it to enemies.

I still say that Wall of Stone should create a temporary Improvement (you should probably add a mechanism for improvements similar to tempTerrainType so you don't permanently destroy the original improvement) similar to a fort or castle (but not upgrading)

Rust doesn't seem like Entropy so much to me (not in the sense of Despair like Agares's sphere really is). I'd probably leave summon imp here, and make the imp sometimes summon balors when they are created (sometimes on your side, sometimes as barbs)

It might be good for the weapons promotions to occasionally rust/corrode on their own (through random events?), but for Mithril to be immune to this.

I still think that Spellstaffs should be considered equipment (so one "buff" Archmage could supply them for other combat mages), and give a slight spell damage boost in addition to the break spellstaff ability.


Hmm...Banish has always seemed more like a Law spell than Entropy to me, since it is a Judgement/lawful condemnation best used against demons and elementals. I wonder how combining Valor and Loyalty, moving Einherjar to level 2 (weakening the unit), and adding Banish as Level 3 spell usable against any Evil unit (demons, undead, units of AV or OO religion, units with entropy or Death promotions, etc) would be good.


I'm not a big fan of the Aurealis, mostly because it is slow. It seems like a manifestation of light should be very fast (the speed of light?). Giving the unit light-mana-movement affinity could be cool.


I'm not quite sure how to improve Trust. Most things I came up with make the spell very similar to Corindale's Peace spell. You don't suppose Spirit III should just be Peace do you, and that Corindale should just start with the Spirit III promotion? That could work nicely I think. It is a powerful spell, but you would lose a caster that had to work all game to gain the xp needed for the promotion.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I'd rather leave summon chaos marauder in. There are enough ways to get mutation as it is. I don't want any spells specifically mentioned in the civilopedia (like those summoned by the Lort brothers) to be removed.

Ah, well, I'm bitting my tongue about Amelenchier's story. Gameplay first.

 

[Kael]

I think part of the reason unyielding order might seem weaker is that you had a limit? An unlimited number of units with UO seems unduly useful--besides which, like was said, makes any other maintenance or happiness modifiers that the religion grants irrelevant. (If it stays like this, might as well cut basilicas and social order.) The power of UO goes up exponentially with each caster, while more casters just make using bless less micro-intensive.

I'm not sure why you think bless is that strong--it's equivalent to flaming arrows which you get at the same time (or can); while it effects more unit types, it is temporary.

Let Bless be dispelled, then you give a good counter to it and I think it'd work fine as a priest-level spell. But we'll see.

Makes sense, I've switched them back.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I agree with all of MC's suggestions, particularly for Ice. One suggestion would be Ice Giants are oermenant, but cannot leave snow or tundra. Also, the III teir spell should have a 'thaw' time between 1 & 20.

 

[Farmer Bobathan]

I agree with what someone said earlier in this thread that the tier I force spell should be magic missile and that it would be really cool if it scaled with the caster's level. I also think that dimensional should stay in and could have some neat spells.

 

[Shatner]

MagisterCultuum, I think you and I have generally similar ideas. Furthermore, I pulled inspiration for some of my ideas (or blatantly copied) from previous posts. In fact, this topic is very exciting and heavily responded to; having hit 11 pages in just 4 days. Still, I think we would all do well to try and keep the amount of duplicate suggestions down to a minimum, if possible. While I would be very flattered if any of my suggestions were, partially or fully, implemented by Kael and Co, I think their job will be all the easier if they don't have to sift through 11+ pages of like ideas.

That said, I much prefer your Force 3 idea to my own...

I think a good Force III spell would be one that gave a temporary, removed-by-combat promotion to the caster that made the game ignore the actual combat odds, giving it a 50-50 shot at winning its next combat. Perhaps Force I could grant units in the stack a promotion that gives units resistance to both holy and unholy damage? (seems appropriate for the Grigori)

For Ice, I'd add Frost (turns terrain to tundra, or tundra to snow, maybe even creates the ice feature on water? Preferably use tempTerrainType so the snow melts and the tile warms up eventually), summon Frost Giant (only on snow or tundra. Very strong for its level, probably with ice affinity, but unable to enter warmer terrain), and Blizzard (like maelstrom, but with cold damage, also casts frost on nearby tiles).

I'd probably make most Creation spells be cross-sphere spells that create new resources (assuming you still have something against true terraforming, like how the AI would never be able to handle it)

I still say that Wall of Stone should create a temporary Improvement (you should probably add a mechanism for improvements similar to tempTerrainType so you don't permanently destroy the original improvement) similar to a fort or castle (but not upgrading)

I still think that Spellstaffs should be considered equipment (so one "buff" Archmage could supply them for other combat mages), and give a slight spell damage boost in addition to the break spellstaff ability.

Creation - for me this sphere should be all about boosting the builder-style gameplay. To that end, resource flexibility, production/gold increases and perhaps a source of defense
Animated Sentinel: creates a permanent, summoned golem that has the guardsman promotion and can build roads and mines. Give it a high defense value. Max one per caster.
Transmutation: gold to copper and back, iron to gemstones and back, incense to regents and back. This helps the builder to peacefully acquire missing resources and/or specialize a town for production or commerce. That and allows the incense dependent FoL and regent dependent Veil slightly more options in their resource acquisition.
Major Fabrication: creates a temporary building which increases the town's production by some percentage (50% or so) and improves the cities trade by a decent amount as well OR increases the number of trade routes. Units can be upgraded for half cost in this city. I'm borrowing inspiration from the DnD spell Fabricate which allows a wizard to produce large amounts of manufactured goods from raw materials, offering a huge industrial boon to the region.


Earth
Wall of Stone (kinda boring, maybe add an effect when it is cast outside of cities?)
- Have this spell create a fort when cast outside of the city. That's basically what it's creating in the city; besides having an adept spamming a generally unimpressive tile improvement seems suitably powered for a level 1 spell.


Enchantment
Enchanted Blade
Flaming Arrows
- I would like this ability to either offer a larger bonus OR allow the unit to bombard the enemy. As is, (non-elven) archers are outperformed by melee units so this spell needs to be disproportionately better to make up for it. That and allowing bombardment would make it more than just a numerical bonus to the unit while still fitting the theme.
Spellstaff
- I always felt this ability, while nice, was a little underwhelming. Maybe have the promotion also decrease the chance of a spell being resisted/increasing spell damage?


Force
Mage Armor: grants all adepts/sorcerers/archmages in the stack a withdraw chance OR energy resistance like stoneskin does (so they can run away, hide in fire or at least not suffer so much from other damaging spells).
Whirlwind (push)
Force Blade: creates an equipment (only one per caster) which increases attack strength and gives a big bonus vs melee since it ignores any armor worn by the enemy. Also acts as the blitz ability or magic resistance promotion. This equipment should never be dropped OR should be destroyed instead of picked up by an enemy to ensure the number of force swords available doesn't exceed the number of casters.


Ice
Frost: transform plains and grassland into tundra, transform tundra into snow (I think the Illians and the Doviello should be able to treat tundra as grassland and snow as plains (and maybe ice as normal coast/ocean), making this spell actually useful for them). Also, everyone wants the lands of the elves to be covered in trees, hills for the dwarves, hell terrain for the Infernals and desert for the Malakim. I think this would allow the "cold civs" to have a similar terrain difference because, let's be honest here, being able to spread terrain favorable to your race is awesome. This spell does necessitate additional changes to the Illians and Doviello to really live up to it's potential.
Summon Yeti: this unit should be the counterpart to the sandlion (make it really powerful for it's level but limit it to summons on tundra and ice)
Palace of Ice: when cast in a city it should build a temporary building that gives units built there cold protection, a big defense bonus to the city itself, act as another granary (good for preserving food) and maybe give some amount of money or happy to the city. If cast on a tundra or ice tile it should build a citadel. This is, after all, a level 3 spell and I think would synergize very well with the Illians, both mechanically and thematically
--Alternatively you could make the Ice 3 spell be Blizzard which deals cold damage to all enemies in the 3x3 or 5x5 area surrounding the caster.


Spirit
Courage
Hope
Trust (probably needs to be more powerful)
- I like the idea of this offering a bonus against war wariness and/or a bonus to your great people point generation. Maybe you could make it so the enemies of a leader with Trust are always willing to talk (instead of after X turns of warfare)?


Concerning evil priests healing: cure disease is fine and honestly I'm fine with them having heal. However, if they have Hastur's Razor instead then they can effectively heal but do so in an evil way. Think about it: more evenly distributed damage in a stack PLUS a unit with Medic 2 or 3 = very improved recovery time.

 

[mtagge]

that sounds like a really cool idea but I am just the art guy

Which part the change in the ordering of the Earth spells or the opp fire?
As for the earth promotions, I generally think stoneskin is not a very good spell since it provides a combat buff to a non-combat unit. It can be useful, but is situational. The value of a wall of stone OTOH is now much more important that the defense bonuses stack and I think letting it be permanent and be usable outside a city would justify moving it to the second rank.

If you are talking about the opp fire, I started a thread in the maps and scenarios thread where I am sharing my little python mod comp http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6613194 and updating it as I make changes. It can be a little processor intensive for the main game, but if you have a pretty fast comp it isn't bad at all.

 

[WhitewolfIV]

I think that Ring of Flames should go to the order 1 spell for priest and that veil should have another summoning for the 1 level spell. Then bless could go to Emps and they could get an ability to detect hidden units. This is to make Order priest more fight oriented and veil more summoning oriented. This makes Emps have to do less mirco for detection.

 

[seZereth]

Which part the change in the ordering of the Earth spells or the opp fire?
As for the earth promotions, I generally think stoneskin is not a very good spell since it provides a combat buff to a non-combat unit. It can be useful, but is situational. The value of a wall of stone OTOH is now much more important that the defense bonuses stack and I think letting it be permanent and be usable outside a city would justify moving it to the second rank.

If you are talking about the opp fire, I started a thread in the maps and scenarios thread where I am sharing my little python mod comp http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6613194 and updating it as I make changes. It can be a little processor intensive for the main game, but if you have a pretty fast comp it isn't ad at all.

I meant the combo of both
so an earth mage creates the temporary fort and your archers defend it with opp fire

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I don't believe that every sphere of magic needs spells that you can cast. For example, dimensional mana does nothing but the escape spell or build The Nexus, which actually I feel it's great. Perhaps some mana types do not even need spells, but rather granting passive abilities is enough. The important thing is that each sphere will be used and has its own flavour.

 

[Ahwaric]

I think not all 21 spell spheres should be in. I think there is already too much of them to make all of them interesting, balanced and completed. I think we should have 16 different spheres rather than 21 not so different. Good examples are entropy (could as well be death spells) and sun which is mostly just another fire sphere. So, why not to make each sphere have 1 lvl 1 spell, 2 lvl 2 spells and 1 lvl 3 spell (or 2 lvl 3 spells and 1 per other levels)? Some suggestions below:

Elemental magic:
Air 1: fair winds 2: maelstrom, whirlwind 3: air elemental;? (naval bonus?)
Earth 1: wall of stone 2: stoneskin, crush (weaker version) 3: earth elemental; chance to discover mined resources
Fire 1: blaze 2: fireball, scorch (can turn plains to desert, grass to plains, ice to tundra) 3: fire elemental;?
Water 1: spring 2: water walking, ice bolt/ball (weaker than fire, chance to slow) 3: water elemental;?

Alteration
Body 1: haste 2: regeneration, hastur's razor 3 graft flesh; small bonus to healing rate everywhere
Enchantment 1:enchanted blade 2 flaming arrows, rust (why not?) 3 spellstaff; happines
Metamagic 1: magic eye 2: dispel magic, resist magic 3: summon djinn; magic effectivenes (+10% to damage/lower resist)
Nature 1: treetop defense 2: poisoned blade, guardian vines 3: vitalize; food resource appear chance? or just bonus health for now

Divination
Law 1: loyality 2: valor, law bringer 3: host of einhenjar; lowers maintenance
Life 1: sanctify 2: destroy undead, purify (remove withered, enraged?) 3: ressurection; bonus healing rate within borders
Spirit 1: courage 2: hope, spirit guide (additional xp gain bonus & minor combat bonus, like +10% withdrawal) 3: summon aurealis (or remade trust lowering war wearness); great people growth bonus
Mind 1: charm 2: inspiration, hideous thoughts (weaker version) 3: domination; research bonus

Necromancy
Chaos 1: dance of blades (2 first strike chances) 2: mutation, summon chaos marauder 3: summon manticore; mutation chance
Death 1: summon skeleton 2: summon spectre, wither (does some death damage) 3: summon wraith; lowers enemy health rate within borders
Dimensional 1: escape 2: dimensional gate (free building - as in Magister's modmod), banish 3: jump (allows to paradrop units - as suggested by Magister); stronger summons (+5% per one?)
Shadow 1: blur 2: shadowwalk/hide, summon phantasm (illusion) 3: summon mistform (illusion); no idea

Just some ideas, but I think it would make the magic system simpler and easier to learn, while leaving some not so distinct spell spheres out. It will also be easier to fill with spells and passive abilities.

 

[xienwolf]

I rather like the idea personally of having 6 Technologies for Magic, 5 with 4 Spheres each, and then a 6th with Metamagic only. And I don't think that cutting 5 out of 21 is in any way going to make things notably easier to learn

Multiple spells per sphere ranking would be nice enough, but I think that going into Cross-sphere spells is a more rewarding way to approach the concept. Fire + Ice = Steam and things like that. Then to get your extra spells you must do something extra, not simply happen to get multiple in one shot.

While one can argue that Sun & Fire as elements are fairly close to the same thing, one cannot easily argue that Revelation and Chaotic Change are even marginally close to the same deal. You have to keep in mind every aspect of each sphere when you are dealing with them. And now that it is simply "Casters" instead of "Mages, Summoners & Divinity" the magic system IS simple to learn. Having 21 spheres just means it is diverse and offers large replay potential, which is the primary goal of this mod from the beginning.

 

[Ahwaric]

And I don't think that cutting 5 out of 21 is in any way going to make things notably easier to learn

Well, it is still 24% of the all spheres, so it is much less The current changes made it easier, that is sure, but it is still a lot. Besides, the other point is to make it easier to fill the spheres with nice, useful and fitting spells.

As for the sun sphere, I agree that revelation is different. But it is a priest spell now. So maybe just make sun a priest only sphere and get rid of "fire" spells from it? I do not think crown of brillance or aurealis (just another elemental, but with sun affinity) fits well empyrean religion. I think we should have less offensive ones and more shadow dispell/spiritual growth ones here to make it different.
Just some thoughts.

On the other hand, the cross sphere spells are a great idea Much better than just 2 spells per circle

 

[jimi12]

like earth, wind, and fire mana giving you funk spells.

 

[Algeroth]

I rather like the idea personally of having 6 Technologies for Magic, 5 with 4 Spheres each, and then a 6th with Metamagic only. And I don't think that cutting 5 out of 21 is in any way going to make things notably easier to learn

I second that. But IMHo Metemagic should be in sorcery tech. You need to know other kinds of magic before you start use....wel, metamagic.

 

[xienwolf]

Yeah, actually in my mind it was somewhere further down the line than even that And I do like the idea that Metamagic Nodes have an incredibly nice passive effect to enhance your magic, but they can only be built by Archmages (or possibly Mages, but definitely NOT adepts)

 

[kenken244]

I think that putting revelation as a priest spell is pretty powerfull considering that it can render the dark elf and sidar worldspells useless, Permanently reveal invisible units, and since it works in a range of 3, makes avoiding it nearly impossible. you should make units that start with the invisible promotion able to regain it through a spell of some sort that you can only use in one of your cities, and either reduce the range or make it a high priest spell.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

It shuts down one strategy used by 3 races (you forgot the Doviello). That's not very overpowered, especially because it requires you to go for a specific religion (albeit, the religion I think will be the best in the game in .31)

Also, I approve of taking the AI Doviello down a notch. Wild Hunt allows griefing that would make Team Roomba blanch, and Mahala's pretty competent even when not doing that, and Charadon funnels barbarian hordes to his neighbors... yeah, as things are now those guys are comparable to Vanilla's Catherine for "aw crap, THIS person?" reactions.