Merge Sorcery and Summoning?

[Nikis-Knight]

I had a few more ideas today, just to consider:
vitalize could be changed to a worker action requiring commune with nature. It'd allow for more nature spells and probably be much better on the ai.

Possibly we could combine mages and conjurers while still leaving the summoner/arch-mage dichotomy. Just keep 1/2 the summons, the more interesting ones, adjust power levels, and have mages promote to archmages or summoners.

*But if Summoners are removed, be sure to remove the summoning promotion from Bebematos (sp?), otherwise I expect any map with him to crash.

The only thing im worried about with this design is its impact on the summoning trait. hmm..

I had thought you meant too powerful earlier, but thinking about it more, you surely meant too weak, since this leaves few T3 non-permanent summons. To help the Sheaim retain their flavor and use, you could move some of the current weaker summons to other units, like archers with chaos marauders (maybe at 1 str), assassins with summon spectre, veil priests could keep summon imp, etc. So there would be a few summons to tide them over until they get their (now archmage-replacing) eaters of dreams.

Anyways couldn't some spheres have two, weaker spells instead typical 1 strong?

Ah, yeah, I thought of this too. it could be another way to help the Sheaim; perhaps death 1gives both summons skeleton and summon nightmare, likewise water 1 could give water walking and spring.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I'm not completley happy with this, but I think I'll live. Some suggestions:

Shadow
Hide may be a bit too powerful for teir I, maybe switch it with Shadowalk

Life
Lifespark could be a seconadary Life III spell, as resurrection is very narrow

Will UUs like the Wizard, Pupeteer, and Illusionist be removed? I hope not, but they could be given specail speels-

Wizard- Lichdom upon level 6
Pupteer- Hideous Thoughts
Illusionist- Summon Phantasm

Also crossover spells would be very nice, for salvaging some spells, and making some spheres more powerful-

Life III, Law III- Restore City
Force I, Dimensional I- Summon Djinn
Fire II, Earth II- Create Volcano
Entropy III, Dimensional I- Banish

I think I'll try writing a few events in the Event thread for spell cut spell abilities.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Wall of Stone (kinda boring, maybe add an effect when it is cast outside of cities?)

Upgrades forts. Remove automatic upgrade of forts. (Keep the upgrade via working the tile.)

Metamagic
Floating Eye
Dispel Magic

Metamagic 3--convert mana?

Entropy
Wither
Defile (very specific, needs a broader use)
Enervation (boring, need something more interesting)

MAybe mix either of these with the old contagion effect (so either fallout causes disease when units move over it, or else enervation also reduces health and adds disease.) Disease fits entropy as well as death.

 

[Eddiit]

Well I'm not so happy. My favorite spells and really the only reason I use magic is being removed. Crush and meteor are fun and aside from some terraforming the only reason I use magic at all. Basically you're taking away the offensive capability of magic and making it heavy support. I just can't agree with that.

In theory I liked the idea until I saw those spells removed. By and large summons are bad in general so every spot that a summon has been put in is an offensive spell lost. All this does is reduce the effectiveness of magic in general.

 

[kumquatelvis]

Summon griffin could be moved to Beastmasters (except for the Malakim, which would get Sand Lions). And I like the idea of spells that belong only to special units (like the proposed idea of crush being a dwarven druid spell).

 

[Ringtailed]

In general I like this idea, but I'm concerned that the removal of spells like Meteor Swarm/Crush/Maelstrom will make siege units too useful for weakening stacks. I would seriously hate to see gigantic stacks of catapults become the norm; this would totally kill the mod's flavor and fun factor.

 

[jwin]

I don't like the idea of combining them. For starters, I think it is imprtant to slow down the tech rate down the arcane line. If you can get to both summoning and sorecery before people start wars with you, then those mages would be able to hold off the types of melee units that would be coming at them at that time. I don't think mages should be stand alone troops, they should need protection. Even the Amurites have bowman UU.

If you were to combine them, I would seperate the combat skills from what makes summons strong. Still make people make uncomfortable choices in their promotions by decideing "do I need higher combat to protect the mage, more spells, or better summons?"


One of the annoying things about the support spells that people seem to not like is the inability to autocast things like haste, loyalty, etc. Rather than cutting these, I think they would get more use if the spells could be made to create buildings in a city when the mage is there, like hope does. Make a people that gives courage, poisoned blade, etc to units in the city, or one that casts blinding light or entangle when enemies approach. Takes the micormanaging out, I am sure the AI could use it (well, not completely sure), and would allow people to make the most of these less used spells.

 

[gibbon_malus]

In general I like the change. I have one suggestion though; I think that the current situation, in which most summons are pretty much the same is far too bland, and this change seems to exacerbate this. Most, if not all, summons should have some sort of gimmick or flavor to them. Some suggestions:

• Conjure Air Elemental: I really liked the idea of making them spawn Lightning elementals, and I hope its kept.
• Summon Pit Beast: Fine.
• Summon Spectre: Fine.
• Summon Wraith: Vile Touch is cool, but it would be good to add the fear promotion too.
• Conjure Earth Elemental: make it gain Guerrilla I and Guerrilla II. Maybe have it loose a point of strength to compensate.
• Fireball: Fine.
• Conjure Fire Elemental: It should probably deal collateral damage and loose one point of strength.
• Summon Hosts of the Einherjar: Give it the Guardsman promotion.
• Summon Mistform: Fine.
• Summon Aurealis: Give it +25% city defense.
• Conjure Water Elemental: Have it heal some % (maybe 25%) after successful combat.
• Summon Treant: Fine.
• Summon Kraken: Fine.
• Summon Balor: Fine.
• Summon Lifespark: this should be added back as a second spell at Life III.

 

[Kael]

Thanks for the feedback guys, both ways. I know a change this dramatic is going to have those that like it and those that don't. I am anxious to try it out and I think it could be very positive.

There is a lot of good suggestions and ideas to improve spells in this thread and I will be going back through them. Specifically to Gibbon Malus (nice name) thats exactly what I hope for. I want to lower the number of main spells so that we can concentrate on making them as good as possible. That espeically applies to the summons, I want each to have some specific flavor. That is so much easier if we cut them down.

I also expect that many of the summon creatures will stay in the game, but not as the primary spells. Griffons may be the reward of an event. Sand Lions may only be summonable by Malakim mages, etc etc.

My goal is to simplify the primary line, that which is shared by everyone. Then keep all the detail and complexity at the civ level. So that new players can get in and play, learning some specifics in each game. Then when they switch civs they get a new mix of things to learn. But so that it isnt so overwhelming taken in one burst.

edit: by the way, you guys are the best fans ever. One any other video game forum an idea this dramatic would be met with violent passionate yelling on both sides for and against full of bile and insults. You guys all give your reasoned opinions (which is exactly what I need) and even offer ways to improve it. I cant stress enough that FfH wouldnt be anything without the community, I may check in the changes but so much of what we do comes from you guys. I really appreciate it.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I like this idea. Spells being civ specific are definetly a good idea. It adds much more uniquness to the blander civs, and balances.

I assume that the spells you have 'scrapped' will be added back as civ specific with a few exceptions.

 

[westamastaflash]

Big fan of the reduction. But these could be reimplemented for scenarios or modular mods, right?

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Some suggestions and observations:

* Dance of Blades: While it may be a bit boring, it is moderately effective (neither too powerful or weak, good complement to a melee focused civ), easy to use and readily comprehended by the AI. Don't remove this one lightly.

* Exotic Summons: Don't completely eliminate summons. Such a waste of flavour, variety, and graphical work. Retain things like griffons, guardian vines, azer(s), etc. as custom summoned mobs for heroes (Sphener, Chalid, That Wood-elf druid who's name escapes me at the moment), or religion specific conjurations.

Remember that one of the major selling points of FfH is how each civ plays differently depending on religion and magic choices. While perhaps not useful enough to be lynchpin units on their own right, some of these summons would be nice perks for various religion/alignment combos. Perhaps some of them could become alignment units?

Edit: Doh. I see that Kael and co. are already thinking along these lines. Cool.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Hey, what're you gonna do about Hemah and Gibbon Goetia? If left as they are, they'd become clones of each other for the most part. Hemah would have 2 extra strength and bombardment but would come later. Those would be the only differences.

These heroes belong to my two favorite religions, so I'm interested in hearing this. (Though OO might lose some stock if their uber badass hero all of a sudden gets gimped because you decided archmages were too good at stack busting)

 

[westamastaflash]

How about giving these unique heroes a unique tier 3 spell? Hemah gets Hideous Thoughts, and Gibbon Summon Phantasm (or something)

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Those particular spells blow, but the general idea of giving them unique spells is a solid one. Maybe Hemah could get an old school army-buster archmage spell, if Kael's going to go through with nerfing the ability of regular archmages to fulfill that role. Gibbon... hm. Maybe he could start with or get much easier access to TWINCAST than a normal summoner. Makes up for Impersonate being a useless novelty.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

While we are on the subject of arcane casters in FfH I would like to bring up the subject of casters and the AI. I've been experimenting with the AI classes and I haven't been able to find a profile that keeps the AI from simply cannon-foddering its spell casters into enemy stacks. If y'all can't find a suitable way to make the AI husband its casters better, one sure fix to this is to reduce the attack power of adepts, mages, and archmages to 0; thus making sure they never attack anything. Defence could remain unchanged. As compensation, archmages could get a ranged attack of some sort, to allow the most powerful of casters to keep skilling past 100 xps. Just tossing ideas out there.

Maybe Magister has had better luck getting the AI to respect its casters? I haven't had a good late game run since I patched and shelved my game as the Grigori.

 

[thapagan]

I will miss spiritual Hammer and contagion, I loved to double wack a city with contagion and
Tythoid mary ( have yet to see her new version yet) Maybe 5 spells could be saved and given to the inquistors, and I think all four elemental is not the way to go, divy them up among race lines maybe.

Or maybe not, in Kal El we trust!

 

[MorpheusAk]

I'm with ya, Kael. I think you're mod reduction practice is genius, and I think that combining Summoning and Sorcery is a good call.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Of course we talk nicely on these forums. Civilization is not a game for barbarians now, is it?

We can debate forever which spells to include and which to exclude, but the general idea is one that I will gladly accept, especially since we're adding many spheres into the game as well. Speaking of magic spheres, yeah, definitely keep all 20/21, it forces players to make choices. Personally, I thought summoning was always just a type of sorcery spells anyway. All I will say about this change is this: be careful about what you do with soul debt, etheral call and pass through the ether. If you simply remove those techs, make arcane lore, strength of will and omniscience a lot more expansive!!!

One question though: if you're planning to have a metamagic spell that changes mana nodes into raw nodes or other mana types, wouldn't everyone then wish to keep a metamagic node at all times?

 

[3141592]

Quick idea for a metamajic tier three spell.

Supress: pervents all magic units within one to three squares (whatever workes best for balance purposes) from being able to cast spells for that turn.