Merge Sorcery and Summoning?

[feydras]

I love the idea. The current sorcery / summoning choices are too cluttered. I also like the idea of cross-sphere spells that are granted when you have the right spell sphere combos. Too complicated for the AI and new players? Probably but it is too killer cool to dismiss without considering.

Death 3 + Metamagic 1+ = Lichdom for example.

- feydras

 

[Sisonpyh]

I like these changes for the AI's sake. They never seem to use Magic effectively against me.

But maybe instead of removing all those spells, maybe filter them around to different Civs/units as unique, inherent abilities for flavor and variety.

 

[Tarquelne]

I think you've got very good reasons to change the system. Personally, I'd greatly appreciate a better AI.

I very much like the idea about specializing Arch. summons.
I like that it doesn't seem the sphere's are getting "homogenized." I was afraid that'd happen if the magic system needed simplification.

Fair Winds (still a weak spell unless we can think of another function for it)

Make it last far longer, or just do more (faster, better withdrawal)? Even in it's weak form I like it. The use may be narrow, but I don't think _too_ narrow, and it can make a significant difference.

Regeneration (still a weak spell, needs to be improved)

A bit of instant healing?

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

I'd like an effect outside cities.

Rust (kinda boring, anything more interesting we can do?)

I like Rust. But perhaps less of an effect but very difficult, even impossible, to resist?

Defile (very specific, needs a broader use)

Could you make it mobile? Spread?

Enervation (boring, need something more interesting)

I strongly agree. And I think Ent. three should be something esp. nifty. Wailing and nashing of teeth.

Damage plus the caster sucks xps out of the targets?
Creates demon-spawning helfire?

Fireball
Conjure Fire Elemental (replaces meteor swarm)

I hope those don't turn out to be too similar.

Whirlwind (push)

Yay! I was afraid it'd gotten the chop.

Floating Eye

Could this be made permanent, like Skeletons? I'd like to see more of a difference between Floating Eyes and Hawks.

Graft Flesh (would probably remain as a special purpose spell)
Lichdom (may become a special 2nd spell that is available with death3)
Transmutation
Banish
Hideous Thoughts
Entangle (may become a special druid only spell)
Summon Phantasm
Summon Sand Lion

Those are the to-be-chopped spells I'd miss. Not because of game-balance, lore, or anything like that. I just think they're cool.

 

[Nor'easter]

I think this is a bit much, and you're getting rid of a lot of very useful spells.

Regarding summoned units, someone pointed out in the "what would you cut?" thread that most of them are really just melee units. Yes, some have affinity for particular types of mana, and only a handful (skeletons, guardian vines, treants) are permanent. Perhaps rather than eliminating so many summoned units, you might increase their affinities, or maybe make them all permanent. (I'm a big fan of a combined arms approach, so would love to have a military with a weird mix of summoned units.)

As for the sorcery spells, meteor swarm, contagion, maelstrom (the current spell), and crush are hugely useful against stacks. The net effect of eliminating them will be to force players to build more siege units to weaken enemy stacks, which I think will detract from the fantasy atmosphere of the mod. When you think of a fantasy world do you imagine cannon fire, or a spellcaster raining destruction down on the enemy?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

No need for balancing the types of spells within each sphere at all. I dislike such patterns.

If the current sorcery/summoning system isn't good enough, then I'd want a system with cross-sphere spells (possibly making spheres like creation, dimensional, enchantment, and metamagic act much like a combination of the channeling promotions and sorcery/summing, allowing access to a broad range of spells with other promotions, but not having any spells of their own)

I have no problem with individual spheres having large gaps in their spell slot, especially if they can be combined with other spheres to allow more powerful spells.

 

[sylvain5477]

Fair Winds (still a weak spell unless we can think of another function for it)

The "fair winds" could spread fire when cast next to one, like spread every fires in tile+1 one tile further (when possible). It would make stronger combinaison, only with both mana.

Dance of Blades (kinda boring, anythign more interesting we can do here?)

The units earn a promotion which when dealing damage (either loose or win but the eneny escape) has a good chance to turn the defender/attaquer barbarian.

Summon Wraith (replaces lichdom)

No more lich ?

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

Can make a temporary citadel on the tile if outside city?

Rust (kinda boring, anything more interesting we can do?)

Throw boulders : attaque possible only if on hills, with average damage and cannot move for 2 turns.

Enervation (boring, need something more interesting)

Maybe absorb XP ?
Or balance XP on the stack and tile + 1 (like the razor).

Ressurection (very specific, needs a more general use)

Maybe give immortal promotion to the caster or save one unit just dead from the tile (maybe difficult to implement?)

Summon Aurealis (replaces revelation)

... please no ...

Along with that change all of the priests would switch to a new model where they all get the following spell:

Only 1 spell per level now instead of 4 currently ? (like for OO)
Seems to drastic.

Summon Treant
Summon Kraken

Only 1 like now or can you increase to make the priest useful ?

What do you guys think?

I like the whole idea but it seems a bit to strong for priest.
Maybe have some unit gains some of the lost interesting spells instead.

 

[xienwolf]

The idea of having spells that are cross-sphere effects is somewhat nifty, but at present you can only have 2 pre-reqs for promotions to cast a spell as I see the XML. Thus you would have to require Fire 2 + Air 1 to combine them, with no check for Channeling, Sorcery or Divine.

 

[sylvain5477]

The idea of having spells that are cross-sphere effects is somewhat nifty, but at present you can only have 2 pre-reqs for promotions to cast a spell as I see the XML. Thus you would have to require Fire 2 + Air 1 to combine them, with no check for Channeling, Sorcery or Divine.

Maybe creat mixed promo:

Fire II + Water II allow FireWater II
FireWater II + Sorcery gives one spell

Only on specific combinaison it may be possible isn't it ?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

A much better solution would be changing the spell schema to allow an arbitrary number of promotion requirement, preferably with OR requires too.

 

[kenken244]

I don't like splitting up branches of magic. I think that magic simply needs to have some of it's more general spells become more specific and it's specific spells become more general. That way each spell can have it's own use and not have any need to remove spells.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

This idea doesn't seem so bad. But there are some specifics I balk at:

Air
Fair Winds (still a weak spell unless we can think of another function for it)
Maelstrom (power reduced, replaces whirlwind)
Conjure Air Elemental (replaces maelstrom)

Force

Whirlwind (push)

Air elementals suck nuts. You plan on keeping the far superior earth elementals in the game. I'm not thrilled at the idea of another new, 1-spell sphere. I say don't add force, and keep Air the same as its current incarnation on the mage branch. Just toss all its summons. If you really want to proceed with this, you better beef up Air elementals.

Fire
Blaze
Fireball
Conjure Fire Elemental (replaces meteor swarm)

Same problem. Why use fire elementals when I could have earth ones? Keep meteors or buff fire elementals. Maybe give fire elementals bombardment.

Life
Sanctify (needs a broader use, maybe this and defile grants bonuses in the tile to angels/demons?)
Destroy Undead
Ressurection (very specific, needs a more general use)

I'll hate you forever if you axe lifesparks. They're like the only summon that has a different role than "attack, maybe live a bit longer if it wins" and you plan to get rid of them? Come on now.

Sun
Scorch
Blinding Light
Summon Aurealis (replaces revelation)

This sphere is crap and you acknowledge that by making it the only one you don't need for the towers of mastery. Keep blinding light as an empyrean thing, it fits Rathas quite well and could go on disciples too, but I say lose this sphere for generic mages.

Water
Spring
Water Walking
Conjure Water Elemental (replaces tsunami)

Blah blah blah earth elementals are the only good kind keep the old T3 spell or buff the other elementals, you know the deal.

Anything I'm not talking smack on, I see as a good or at least acceptable idea.

 

[TheCowSaysMoooo]

I'm glad this is at least getting looked at, regardless of the final outcome. The current magic system is, in my opinion, need of some slimming.

As far as some of the weak and/or missing spells... a couple ideas off the top of my head:
Body:
Enlarge (if you can do the visual to go along with it, otherwise Strengthen) - Adds Strong promotion until the unit's next combat

Chaos:
Word of Chaos (temporarily charms/weaken/confuse a random target within 1 square radius)

Creation:
Create Potion (requires mage be in city, perhaps with mage guild or alchemy shop, costs 10 gold, creates randomly selected: 50% heal, haste, hide, or heroism (1 xp))
Create Homonculus or Familiar (mechanically I'm thinking similiar in effect to stoneskin, though maybe increases xp, or? dunno, just a random thought)
?name? (creates an random, though appropriate (per xml) bonus on current tile, can't be recast normally, is instead "un-greyed out" by event)

Earth:
Spike Stones (can only be cast on hill, either creates a zone of negative healing on current hill and surrounding hills, or summons creature with something like 1 str, 6 first strikes on the same areas)
Move Earth (move a hill in the direction you're facing to your current location)
Rock to Mud (all creatures except flying in radius have movement rates temporarily reduced to 1)

Entropy:
possible new effects: minor damage, but loss of a combat promotion or two?
damage all living creatures in your plot and the plot in the direction the mage is facing?

Force:
Shield of Force (+2 defense strength until next combat)
Wall of Force (similar to Guardian Vines, immoble high strength unit that has a limit to damage can deal)

 

[frenzyslave]

Combining the two (summoning/sorcery) is a good idea for simplicity to noobs and the AI.

As for summoning, why the hell are almost all of them tier 3? Why arent there more summoning options for tier 2 (besides death) and less at tier 3 to balance? Some of the low level summons are just cool.

The loss of meteor swarm is going to hit a few people in the ghoulies, but I thought it was too cheesy anyways.

Of the spells for the axe, the only one I will regret is the Restore City spell, but I can live with it gone.

 

[OzzyKP]

While removing stuff from a mod usually fills me with dread, I will admit that it will help the art team no end to have just three units in the arcane line rather than five.

Removing stuff from mods makes me very happy. Most mods try to pack in 6 million things that just ends up being a cluttered mess.

Merging sorcery & summons is a fantastic idea. There was just way too much. I'm no newbie, but I spent way too much time trying to figure out what each spell does every game and figure out which mana and spells I want to go for. It was overwhelming.

Still might need some tweaking as to what stays and what goes, but I think trimming the fat is a great idea.

Finally, re: rust, I don't think this spell is boring or weak at all. It is one of my favorite spells and has a huge effect. Overpowered maybe, boring no.

 

[TheJopa]

Wow. This is BIG change. I must say initially I'm not too happy with it (I at least hope this is not it's final implementation, seeing how many positive responses you got I'm sure it will go through, but let us revise it throughly please)
That being said, I have full confidence in Kael and teams design ability, so anyway I'm sure it will play better. BUT:
Priests would need more spells than just 2 per level.
Hastur's razor can remain as priests of OO new spell
Transmutation, unholy taint, guardian vines - Same but for other religions
Contagion- I really like this spell
Restore City- Same
Blur-Same
Summon Phantasm-Same

More I think about this, I see following spells indeed can go or at least reappear in new forms such as those already scheduled to do so (Druid only spells, yea)

Burning Blood (maintained for the Moroi)
Graft Flesh (would probably remain as a special purpose spell)
Rage (maintained for the avatar of wrath)
Lichdom (may become a special 2nd spell that is available with death3)
Summon Kikijub
Crush (may become a special dwarven druid spell)
Spiritual Hammer
Summon Imp
Banish
Summon Azer
Pillar of Fire (probably made into the citadel of light effect) Yay for keeping this
Meteor Swarm
Summon Law Bringer
Righteous Cause This one never worked properly anyway
Summon Griffon
Summon Lifespark
Hideous Thoughts
Entangle (may become a special druid only spell)
Whitefire
Summon Sand Lion
Summon Djinn

So is it final or in consideration or passed, just waiting to see exactly how to implement this?

 

[eerr]

I always knew there were too many spells...
perhaps a priest with unholy taint could be a requirement to make death 3 arcmages into liches?

 

[Breunor]

I'm probably too conservative, but I think I like it better the way it is now. Of course, i do think some spells (summon Azer) should be removed. However, I think crush is a badly underestimated spell and like it.

Specifically, I like the idea that some spheres are good for summoning and others maybe good for mages, and that makes deciding which mana nodes to build harder.

So, I guess I'm for 'cleaning up' the system but I like it the way it is.

I do agree, though, that summoning maybe needs more flavor, they do seem to do the same things.

However, like TheJopa, I have confidence in the wisdom of the design team.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Mailbox]

I honestly think this is a great change. Fall from Heaven is an already complex mod, and reducing clutter helps not only the team to balance the spells, but it also helps newer players and saves lots of extra units and space.

From Civ 4 itself:

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

[Vehem]

I'd have to echo what some of the others have said. I read the title and came to the thread expecting to hate it - but it actually makes a lot of sense. It'd be a big change, but would simplify things dramatically.

Can't really add anything else that hasn't already been said - but I think this could be a good idea.

 

[TheJopa]

However, like TheJopa, I have confidence in the wisdom of the design team.

Best wishes,

Breunor

Anyways couldn't some spheres have two, weaker spells instead typical 1 strong?
Lichdom and summon wraith is one example (though wraith ain't weak)
Where are lighting elementals?
Defile and Unholy taint could be at Entropy 2.