Merge Sorcery and Summoning?

[Blackmantle]

Sorry missed that part.

How exactely is getting 3 Nodes easier than getting 2? Even close?
Its very situational for all others (for those without starting with fire mana) to pull that one of. Far from "everyone can easiely and quickly pull that one off" imo.
In fact in the time where you could reliably! acomplish that one (getting 3 developed nodes of one type) in 0.30 nearly everyone could get mages with fireball and! other diverse spells as well.
And getting EP wasn't exactly hard before. In fact it has become harder in the long run (disbanding chaos marauders for mortal training of your Adepts anyone? Sadly doesn't work anymore. Miss those guys for a regular mage-training session.)

Also, should Xienwolf be right (which i doubt because of the explicitly written reason in the changelog for Gonavons reintorduced Desciple-training) thats more than most others can offer on the magic side.

But if you really want to see them to be that common / baseline they are. For you.
Because its personal opinion (generic / baseline isn't exactly to be quantified.) anyways and that is different from one player to another (and just because they are Forum-heavy-weights that doesn't make their opinion less personal in that regard. Which isn't a bad thing after all.). Its all down to taste.
I whould see it differently and actualy think the oposite at Tier 2 (at Tier 3 i whould agree with some of the missing spells) and find they have become more unique (even if i agree they could use an additional Archmage-UU like the Sheaim have.). And long arguments on a taste-basis are moot anyways.

And last but not least: The game is still in Mid-Beta.
So thats perhaps not what it all boils down to at the end. (Just as i dislike some of the cuts from spells very much (especially unyielding orders de-facto cut.), i dont think that is all we will see. And i still hope for some mayor changes to the magic system. I do favor a wait / see and comment (that last part only because of the change proposed in that tread btw.) approach and rather judge the final result instead of every step of the way. But if you don't thats all your right to.)

 

[Kael]

Yeah, the Amurites being able to have priest/mages is intentional. Adepts being able to learn rank2 spells is not.

But intention is trumped by balance. So Im okay with unintentional changes if they improve the game, and Im okay with backing out intentional changes if they make the game worse.

Which is why we need playtest feedback from you folks.

Patch "d" will undo the adepts ability to cast rank2 spells. For now Im leaving Govannon's ability to train up "super priests", but we will see how it works out.

 

[DREWid]

Patch "d" will undo the adepts ability to cast rank2 spells. For now Im leaving Govannon's ability to train up "super priests", but we will see how it works out.

woohoo! thanks keal ... sorry blackmantle if i sounded snappy or dismissive... but all off these arguements have been batted around before and i shouldnt have assumed youd read older threads... my opinions are based on arguements ive previously made supported by the evidence as i see it...

and frankly i think keal may have slapped me if i had highjacked this thread to restate my position!

i love my little mages and just want them to be loved by the whole world... until they reign down firey death... errr i mean enlighten everyone!

 

[Blackmantle]

It didn't came over so harsh, no worries. I just don't go as far as mixing taste / opinion / plausibility and evidence.
The only thing that mildly irritates me is tutoring of "ways one has to think" along these lines.
Im fine with a different opinion and you saying its what you think (and those of other well known and established members). As long as its not presented as hard facts which it isn't. (and we sure are not at a science lab/institution so i contest a need for them or convincing me / others in the first place. Especially if flavor is the point of the argument.)

I have a different position on that one regradless of yours or that of other forum heavyweights perhaps due to my taste / playstyle. (and evidence has to be based on experience / tests not opinions. Thats hard to do if a feature doesnt exist. If I remember rightly adepts never before could pull that one of. So there can be no hard evidence (which again is moot imo) on that feature that is more than a few days old. Let alone "older threads". And just because someone no matter how important starts a lengthy discussion that doesn't do much to convince me to change my taste or style of play. Which i like.)
I hope you agree that there is not one way "its ment to be played" and that there is a place for all FFH-Players and their tastes?
(Dont worry, I dont contest the need for a common ground or overall guidline. )

Don't forget: You can just start that after you have all the 3 nodes developed not to existing ones. And those "Tier 1" adepts have the cost of an average Tier 2 or even Tier 3 unit! So at that times others crank out different Tier 2 / 3 or swarm skellies like mad (and they do get better retroactively when there casters go combat. Unlike lately produced adepts). So balancing can hardly be a problem there.



And i sincerely doubt, that Kael whould mind a quite close to toppic threadjack + feedback. Let alone slap you.
And flavor is no doubt a big part of the game.



@ Kael: I think that with that adept change you defeat one of the most important reasons for the merge. Simplicity for newcommers (imo far more important than a small flavor aspect) and help for AI.

Even if Adept-Level spectres are really hefty (again Fireballs at that level are completely unscary in my book. Nothing in power you can't get at time anyways and cheaper. Skelletons are not much less powerful, and they are fully Tier 1.)

Ill try perhaps a game of sheaim (with patch c) and try it first hand and give some feedback on it. Sounds fun but perhaps really unbalancing just because of that. They are the only balancing Danger i can spot there remotely with that feature given the price you have to pay. None of the other spells is if i can spot it right.
Though i would rather advise you nerf specteres then and leave the game simple instead of complicating the system for new players / AI beyond necessity just because of one very small part in the balancing (one spell).


That said i think spectres such early in addition to affinity might be a serious problem for balance even without trying it. (Taking off affinity and giving Str 4 / retaining fear might work better than nerfing 3-sphere Adepts. Wraiths have Affinity still after all and fear is nice and more or less unique. So you don't just get an all in one ticket.)

And i guess flavor is hardly what you ment by intended changes disrupting balance. So i rather account this change to my maths with Death 2 (even if the result was unintentional ) at Adept level. (correction surely appreciated if i got that one wrong )

No point in arguing anything of your reasoning though for the changes. Very sound, nothing to add to that part imo. (just wanted to explain what i thought was intended and what wasn't / why i thought that way and arguing in favor of Tier 2 casting tripplemana adepts. For Ganavon im Fine either way (don't play amurites that often btw. ). If that stays then i don't reckon Amurites whould still need an additional Archmage-UU as i stated earlier.)
So have fun with spell-slinging High-Priests Amurite mages of walks.


Important addition @ Kael: After seeing the change you prospected in the changelog (If i understood that one Adepts getting the sphere 1 for free with one node and number of nodes = number of free spheres corosponding to level) i can't say i dislike it anymore so much at all.

As usual with FFH. One likes what's in, dislikes it changing and then the change in fact accomplishes more than you bargained for in the first place .
In that case you combined the goals of my wish for AI and newcommer simplicity and DREWid's wish for no Adept Tier 2 casting and retaining the power of the Amurites (in fact they have become a whopping bit better by that change and having Metamagic will now really pay off for their Adepts and even Mages. Hyper Micromanagement ftw. Poor AI ;( ).
Hats of to you for that ability. Perhaps one of the reasons why this game is so greath.

Still i will try one or 2 0.31 c games kicking some epic deity no-building requirements ass with some Shaim spectre adepts nontheless just for the fun of it. (Lets see how long i need for a large creation map or if i suck and get my ass handed).

 

[Kael]

No i didnt record that correctly in the changelog. Just as before adepts get rank 1 for free if they have 2 soruces of the mana. 3 Sources of the mana give mages the rank 2 for free, and 4 sources of mana give archmages rank 3 for free.

I dont know that its either more or less complex to give adepts access to rank 2 spells if you have a lot of mana nodes of the same type. I do know that it should be unbalancing (wether or not it is or not may be a different story) just as getting access to an army of cheap champions when everyone else only has axemen is to powerful.

Although I havent tried it I imagine maelstrom rush adepts (at 90 hammers each) with some axemen to clean up would be way to effective. I also think it would defeat the major weakness of mages (that they cant easyily be mass produced).

 

[Blackmantle]

Then perhaps at least consider about changing it that way and let us test. (1 Mana = 1 free sphere for Adepts / 2 for 2 Spheres for Mages and 3 for 3 Spheres for Archmages.)
That whould for sure be far simpler to grasp for newcommers / AI. And i doubt that it whould be more powerful even since the most powerful spells have been removed from the system.

Im not afraid that whould be to strong (less so than Adepts casting Tier 2 spells). Magic is way weaker than before so the spectre p) of Archmages with Sphere 3 Promotions at start of SoW (wich is way late) doesnt scares me alot. And getting more than 10 mana in a normal game is not so common. At least until victory is virtually achieved anyways

I still guess you overestimate the power of mages after the nerf as do some players (even more as i read in the Changelog-thread) based on their old experiences with 0.30 and before. But that will soon to be seen. But for sure i could be way off and mages still overpowered. Will only see if we test it in practice.

So finally off now to a funny little shaim game. Who needs Axeman for clean-Up (free Immortals whould be more fitting i guess. Str 6 Spectres with empower 5 are Str 9 after all and replenish every time they vanish.) when you finish them of with the spell in the first place? And that same spell is still around for 2 more turns to kick butt. Along with some free permanent replenishable Champions (empower 5 skellies) to double clean up.

 

[Omegon3]

4 Archmages and 4 Liches is a huge amount of power, only 1 less than the old method (3 archmages, 3 Summoners, and 3 Liches). Although, this does bring up the question of death mana being very powerful for an individual sphere.

It was my understanding from earlier posts that liches were no longer in the game...??? While I have reached the archmage stage (actually quite a while back), I've been having problems "pulling the trigger" on upgrading them due to a lack of confidence with the new scenario. I really liked the old format of having mages/archmages and conjurers/summoners as it provided a much cleaner breakdown of abilities (in my opinion -- though I do appear to be in the vast MINority). I also really miss the ability to do some "conjuring" with level 2 arcane units since these units provided some good defensive abilities (weaken the suckers down, then hit them with champions, chariots, etc.).

Anyhow... Thanks for the input and straightening me out on the liches. I guess that I'll start upgrading to archmages and finally learn that, yes, liches are available (I'm making a list, checking it twice, going to find out which mages are naugty AND nice...).

 

[Lazylen]

nooo please don't... I saw one change in there that really disturbed me... meteors being replaced by fire elementals.

I love the fact that I can sit out to sea on a ship with a vampiric hemah w/ twincast & meteors and blow the crap out of any city I please. getting rid of meteors would make me so sad.

 

[stp]

i still vote to give the amurites back meteor swarm as a civ specific spell ... it would give them that'yes we can swat you with majic' feel. but i would restrict it to govanno + there 4 living archmages, so liches would lose it on becoming undead.

if you think its to powerful tone it down a bit, ie 3 fireballs instead of meteors, or just 2 meteors.

it would also make them a uu comparible with the eaters of dreams, which is approriate for the worlds greates mages

An idea I had is replacing cannons for magical civs (Amurites, Ljosalfar, etc.) with a siege mage UU that gets the meteor spell (Perhaps with only one meteor). I never found it appropriate that a civ concentrating on arcane powers builds cannons.

If you give this unit to Ljosalfar, it would also save the pedia entry where they use the meteor spell, and solve any Ljosalfar siege problems.

 

[Omegon3]

OK... Now that I'm straightened out on liches (i.e. you CAN build them), I do have a question in regard to them...

Have they been made any more resistance to Basium's world spell than they were before? Inevitably when Basium casts this spell (whether or not he's "on my side") I lose one, two, or even all three of my lich units even though -- by that time -- I've at least added one strength upgrade to them. The new scenario, while giving an additional lich unit, loses a little of its impact if all the liches you've created are killed as soon as war breaks out -- especially if you've tried to distribute your mage upgrades and only have a few at level 2 death (i.e. ready to convert to archmages and on to liches).

Thanks.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Build? No I don't think so. You never could build them, you have to cast Lichdom to get one.


Divine Retribution has been nerfed a little more in .31.



I still say that Treants need to be siege units, and that Fire doesn't magic make sense for the Elves (not that they shouldn't be able to use it like anyone else, but they shouldn't be forced to rely upon it and they certainly should not have a UU that uses fire)


I wouldn't mind seeing Amurite, Sheaim, and Infernal UUs for siege units that are more arcane.

I'm thinking the Amurites could use an Arcane Barge UU with at least air magic in addition to the normal fire, a Berserker UU with at least body magic, siege UUs with fire and maybe earth magic, Shadows UU with shadow magic, etc.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I think it's fine for the elves to use fire magic. However, Treants would be excellent bombarders. In addition, the Mages of the Ljoslafar army could have a unique spell , 'Creepers'. It would reduce an enemy city's defense by 10% and possibly do minor poison damage to units garrisoned there.

 

[stp]

I still say that Treants need to be siege units, and that Fire doesn't magic make sense for the Elves (not that they shouldn't be able to use it like anyone else, but they shouldn't be forced to rely upon it and they certainly should not have a UU that uses fire)


I wouldn't mind seeing Amurite, Sheaim, and Infernal UUs for siege units that are more arcane.

I'm thinking the Amurites could use an Arcane Barge UU with at least air magic in addition to the normal fire, a Berserker UU with at least body magic, siege UUs with fire and maybe earth magic, Shadows UU with shadow magic, etc.

Some very fine ideas here, I hope you will put some of them in your modmod. However, a meteor is basically a big stone falling from the sky, and not necessarily a fire spell in the new magic system. Therefore I do not see a big problem with giving it to a Ljosalfar unit.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'll probably add them to my modmod eventually (Treants were already siege in my first modmod iirc)

I think I consider Meteor to be a Fire-Earth cross-sphere spell (Probably Fire2/Earth2. Fire3/Earth3 would probably have to be Volcanism, a powerful new offensive/terraforming spell). I don't think that Fireballs should be able to bombard defenses, but Meteors certainly could (probably better than they do now)

Meteors are still flaming rocks, which would still set trees on fire, and still not particularly appropriate for the elves. Nothing wrong with them using it, but it is still not appropriate for an elven UU

 

[stp]

It is still a flaming rock, which would still set trees on fire, and still not particularly appropriate for the elves. Nothing wrong with them using it, but it is still not appropriate for an elven UU

Valid points, my concern was mostly to preserve the meteor shower pedia entry, which I found quite good.

 

[Omegon3]

Have the strength of fireballs been increased with the loss of meteor swarms? In my current game (still with the Illians -- God bless 'em, they are kickin' butt!!) I'm finding that fireballs are killing units that they only wounded in the past. For example, one (1!!) fireball killed a full-strength galleon. Two fireballs wiped out a war chariot. I'm not feeling so bad about the loss of meteor swarms if this is the case...

 

[xienwolf]

Meteor Shower Pedia entry IS still in the game. Look at Fireball's Pedia entry

 

[Verdian]

On the subject of Govannon and what he can do by teaching spells, I wanted to mention a function that I am not sure is over powered or not.

I recently played as the Amurites, and had adopted the Undercouncil. The fact that slaves can be taught how to summon skeletons was immensely helpful to me. I would buy a bunch of slaves in the city Govannon was in, teach them how to summon them, and then have my fully upgraded mages and archmages summon 6str, 3move skeletons by the dozen. Then I could just sell or use the slaves, and I had an instant army. It seemed excessively powerful to me, but it was a late game tactic that required a bit of money. Should Govannon equal a free Guild of the Nine?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm still thinking that an uncontrolled, pyPerTurn train ability that randomly teaches any spell sphere that Govannon knows and occasionally even channeling 2 or (very rarely) channeling 3 to a random unit would be better. Sine this would have to be a function of a promotion (as it is currently implemented) you might as well also rarely let him train this promotion, so more than one unit would be training your army. Since he doesn't like the magical hierarchy, it doesn't seem like he would take orders about whom to train what. The other plus side of this is it lets you actually use him as an archmage, since he wouldn't waste his spells on training. (Why, yes, this is how I plan to do it in my modmod)

 

[stp]

Meteor Shower Pedia entry IS still in the game. Look at Fireball's Pedia entry

Thanks, I didn't notice that.

In that case meteor is not required to be accessible to the Ljosalfar. Still I believe that a summon meteor spell (Perhaps summoning only one or two meteors) would be good for the siege line of arcane civs, especially the Amurites. Why would one bother developing gunpowder based siege units when they already accomplish similar things through arcane powers. So I think a siege mage unit as cannon replacement makes sense for the Amurites, and maybe the Sheaim (One of Tebryn's diplomatic texts mentions meteor showers as far as I know).