Module: Arcane Academies

[readercolin]

The problem with your notion that these are great is that this is Rise from Erebus. That means that these buildings are competing with:
Regular Academies from sages
Great Engineers who instant build wonders
Master Craftsmen (from Great Engineers)
Founding Corporations
Altar of the Lunnotar
Settling great people (which is significantly more powerful than many people truly believe)
Religious Buildings

This means that you have to make it so that it would be worth my while to use a great person on these buildings instead of the ones listed above. On top of that, there are 21 buildings, and the average player is lucky to get more than 3-4 great people a game, 8-10 if they run a specialist economy. This means that these buildings are competing against other uses that could massively boost their economy. At the moment, I would relegate them into the "Cool, but not all THAT useful", and not really aim for them in my usual games. I might try them out in a specific game that I devoted just to that, but just from looking at them trying to get the great people that I would need (and need to devote away from my already running a dedicated specialist economy in most of my games), generally I'm not seeing anything worth devoting a great person too.

Part of the reason why I'm not really seeing much use for them however comes from the fact that for the most part, magic is rather useless. Yeah, it makes things a little easier, and I won't pass it up if I can snatch it for cheap, but aside from terraforming, there isn't anything that magic can do that a big enough stack of champions can't. And I can guarantee you that I will get the big enough stack of champions - I can't guarantee the mages.

-Colin

 

[Calavente]

I kinda agree with you... but my notions are no less true.

If you make them so great, you won't use regular academy or bulb techs... as the "new" academies would be much more interesting..
And all what you proposed are not GS ..
Sometimes you don't have a choice on the GP you get.

settling is the same for all great people : always super nice... so I don't count it
GE are good : insta-build (not so great in RiFE vs FFH as there are so many wonders that none are "must have" as in FFH where some were worth the cost.) to compensate this "loss", the can build MAster Craftsmen... and that makes them über.
GP : altar + Holy shrine
GM : guilds, + insta cash with the mission ... maybe they are the less interesting? save for the +1Food when settled
GA : cultur boost, guild, end of anarchy when boosts..
GS : better bulbing, academy. nowadays, with GS : 1st : academy, 2nd, somtimes academy... 3rd-Nth... settled... until 150turns befor endgame then: bulbing or Golden age : I almost never bulb as It is rarely in my optionnal research direction

that's almost balanced... now you add new options for the GS... they have to be balanced with the other propositions, not be better, nor more interesting.

for me those propositions, modified a bit, maybe with my recommandations, maybe with the other propositions for more balance, other effects...Etc are usefuln not as a "I want to build all the magical academies" but as a "I don't want to settle my GS.. what can I do with him ?"

 

[nikosison]

The problem with your notion that these are great is that this is Rise from Erebus. That means that these buildings are competing with:
Regular Academies from sages
Great Engineers who instant build wonders
Master Craftsmen (from Great Engineers)
Founding Corporations
Altar of the Lunnotar
Settling great people (which is significantly more powerful than many people truly believe)
Religious Buildings

This means that you have to make it so that it would be worth my while to use a great person on these buildings instead of the ones listed above. On top of that, there are 21 buildings, and the average player is lucky to get more than 3-4 great people a game, 8-10 if they run a specialist economy. This means that these buildings are competing against other uses that could massively boost their economy. At the moment, I would relegate them into the "Cool, but not all THAT useful", and not really aim for them in my usual games. I might try them out in a specific game that I devoted just to that, but just from looking at them trying to get the great people that I would need (and need to devote away from my already running a dedicated specialist economy in most of my games), generally I'm not seeing anything worth devoting a great person too.

Part of the reason why I'm not really seeing much use for them however comes from the fact that for the most part, magic is rather useless. Yeah, it makes things a little easier, and I won't pass it up if I can snatch it for cheap, but aside from terraforming, there isn't anything that magic can do that a big enough stack of champions can't. And I can guarantee you that I will get the big enough stack of champions - I can't guarantee the mages.

-Colin

It IS true i'd rather a GE than some of these acads (the sun, shadow, and meta are particularly icky), but some of them can be quite game changing. They really don't represent a very significant tech dedication. (only one more tech than koe) and some are really powerful. The fire acad gives a half a chalid, the mind gives a second "normal" academy, the death one gives 3 to all your cities, while the water one is a free heron throne in all your cities. Force is also really powerful mid-game. In particular, the fire one will eat your champ stack alive.

 

[Randomness]

You only get 3-4 GP a game? I find I get to many GS to know what to do with. I do usually play as philisophical leaders, but is there really that much of a difference?

 

[Jojomo]

First up, again thank you odalrick for that tidy piece of work, sorted things out very nicely with a bit of adaptation.

But I don't think anyone would use it. I for my part would buy Spellsphere Level I + Spellsphere Level II to wait a bit until I get enough XP to promote my unit to Spellsphere Level III as I can use 500 a lot of better.

OK, I can see that, but I don't think that getting access to a Level III spell should be any cheaper than it is. As odalrick pointed out however, the main investment here is indeed the time required. The way I've set it up, the unit is held in the city and can't cast spells while it's studying, so you have to do without your arcane unit if you want to put it into training. I'll wait and see what playtesting brings up regarding pricing/timing.

If however it is possible to get the promotions from that spell sphere (which I was uncertain about after reading your post), then these buildings would be worth using a great person on, even without the bonuses, provided that it still allows you to do so after changing your mana nodes away from that buildings mana type after construction.

-Colin

Yeah, it's possible to get the promotions and change the mana afterwards.

Spoiler :

I disagree.
Those buildings are almost worth a holy shrine, and are worth more than an actual academy!
thus the use of a GS is at least necessary. they are good proposals, but the version you proposed (or the ones most peoples proposed) are mostly too good IMO.

I'll explain :
first : to Jojomo : That's a really great work !!
then : explanations :

...

My suggestions to make them more balanced : make them less easy to have ! :
-World Wonders ==> depends on what your ennemies do.
-need mana (either node ==> need the accurate mana tech, or HS, or Palace, Or free mana already on the map ==>- your neighbours may have an advantage for getting the academy you want without knowing how to build a node)==> only for building, not for giving bonus or learning the related spells
-need KOE (as it is related to the arcane)
-need each a "mundane" tech... no real reason... just so all thoses acadmies need more than a arcane speciallisation and to rise the cost to get those.
maybe you can balance it so the less interesting academies are related to lower techs, and so that the more powerful academies are related to tier 3 techs !!

for me, the 3 last ones replace the need of any of the tech elementalism/necromancy...etc (those already have the towers as related wonders)

my 0.2

thanks for taking the time to read all this

Well, glad you like the idea at least!

I'll address the suggestions you made one at a time:

1) World Wonders: I think they're probably better as National Wonders, more from the lore perspective than anything else, as I've described them (in the pedia) as centres of learning within the country. Also, giving one side in a war the training ability while depriving the other seems kinda dicey to me from a balance perspective, powerful World Wonders notwithstanding. If there proves to be a consensus that the effects are too powerful, I can always scale them back or remove them, since I mainly added the effects for flavour.

2) Require mana/tech: I'm a little confused here, they already require these things before the GS can build them, maybe I didn't explain that too well. For example, to acquire the Academy of Bones (associated with Death magic) you need a Great Sage, the Necromancy technology and a source of Death Mana (although you could dispel that afterwards).

3) Require KOE: I presume you mean Knowledge of the Ether? In that case see above, anyone who can build these academies already has this technology.

4) Require "mundane" tech: Hmmm... not sure about this, I suppose Construction/Engineering would be appropriate in terms of lore, but I'm not sure it's entirely necessary. Again, I think I'll wait for some actual playtesting before making final calls on this one.

The point you made about dispelling the mana after building the Academy is valid, but there's a sacrifice there; training a unit at the academy is significantly slower than taking the promotion, so it may not be as powerful as you think. Also, to use dispel, you need the Sorcery tech (unless there's a UU I've forgotten that can do it earlier) which is the magical equivalent of Iron Working by which point there'll be some powerful units/heroes coming out anyways.

The problem with your notion that these are great is that this is Rise from Erebus. That means that these buildings are competing with:
Regular Academies from sages
Great Engineers who instant build wonders
Master Craftsmen (from Great Engineers)
Founding Corporations
Altar of the Lunnotar
Settling great people (which is significantly more powerful than many people truly believe)
Religious Buildings

This means that you have to make it so that it would be worth my while to use a great person on these buildings instead of the ones listed above. On top of that, there are 21 buildings, and the average player is lucky to get more than 3-4 great people a game, 8-10 if they run a specialist economy. This means that these buildings are competing against other uses that could massively boost their economy. At the moment, I would relegate them into the "Cool, but not all THAT useful", and not really aim for them in my usual games. I might try them out in a specific game that I devoted just to that, but just from looking at them trying to get the great people that I would need (and need to devote away from my already running a dedicated specialist economy in most of my games), generally I'm not seeing anything worth devoting a great person too.

Part of the reason why I'm not really seeing much use for them however comes from the fact that for the most part, magic is rather useless. Yeah, it makes things a little easier, and I won't pass it up if I can snatch it for cheap, but aside from terraforming, there isn't anything that magic can do that a big enough stack of champions can't. And I can guarantee you that I will get the big enough stack of champions - I can't guarantee the mages.

-Colin

First of all, I wouldn't expect anyone to get all of these buildings, in fact I can't see much use in that. I intended that they be used to teach some but not all promotions to arcane units, and also to spice up Great Sages, which as it stands lack the special abilities of the others (no master buildings, guilds, only 1 religious shrine).

I can see why you wouldn't go for them if you generally only use magic in a support role, but then it would be equally valid for someone with a playstyle heavily skewed towards using magic to say that the Master Craftsmen are useless, and that he'd rather build one of these academies.

Regarding magic being generally useless, I really can't agree with that assessment. As nikosison pointed out, some spells can eat large stacks of Champions alive. In particular, I submit to you that any force of Champions will most likely lose to a force of equal value of Mages with Sun II and Death II, since they won't be able to advance or retreat, and will be facing equal or greater numbers of totally expendable units with a strength comparable to their own (especially if the mages are supported with adepts using rust to remove Iron weapons).

I kinda agree with you... but my notions are no less true.

If you make them so great, you won't use regular academy or bulb techs... as the "new" academies would be much more interesting..

...

that's almost balanced... now you add new options for the GS... they have to be balanced with the other propositions, not be better, nor more interesting.

for me those propositions, modified a bit, maybe with my recommandations, maybe with the other propositions for more balance, other effects...Etc are usefuln not as a "I want to build all the magical academies" but as a "I don't want to settle my GS.. what can I do with him ?"

As I observed before, these buildings are quite situational, depending on whether or not the individual uses arcane units a lot. As you put it however, they're intended as something to make the GS more interesting. You're right, they shouldn't be better in all circumstances but sometimes I think they should, like pretty much everything else.

On the news front, the first version is almost done, so it should hopefully be released soon

 

[Imuratep]

First of all, I wouldn't expect anyone to get all of these buildings, in fact I can't see much use in that. I intended that they be used to teach some but not all promotions to arcane units, and also to spice up Great Sages, which as it stands lack the special abilities of the others (no master buildings, guilds, only 1 religious shrine).

That's why I would consider it best to enable the spell that let's you achieve the spell promotions to everyone not only the builder. You could look for the other Academies to be founded in other lands and then make an open border treaty to visit it with your Mages.
Therewith doing so is advantageous for both sides how giving a certain amount of gold to the controller of the Academy each time the training spells are cast (about 20% of the price should be ok). This means being liberal in distributing your arcane knowledge can quite profitable for you granting you a significant economical boost.

 

[Calavente]

well Jojomo,
I may have been misunderstood..

I proposed mana + mundane tech (+Knowledge of the Ether)
instead of "mana + related mana tech : elementalisme/necomancy/divination/alteration.
why ?
-because you don't have to have the elementalisme tech to start a study on the fire mana you have in your palace...
-because your proposition is focused into the arcane line and you would propose 21 additonal wonders for the arcane path.
my proposition mana +mundane tech, allows a spreading of the wonders, in the same way that the mastercraftsmen, requiring a GE, are spread through the tech tree.

why a wonder ?

I think they're probably better as National Wonders, more from the lore perspective than anything else, as I've described them (in the pedia) as centres of learning within the country. Also, giving one side in a war the training ability while depriving the other seems kinda dicey to me from a balance perspective, powerful World Wonders notwithstanding

it is my purpose but I disagree with your conculsions...
first : why not make them, for the lore "as centres of learning within the world".
-then : if someone make one before you : you won't be deprived of the training ability, only of the training ability in one mana... if you are deprived of fire academy, just go for the air or ice academy or the entropy academy (allows you to learn entropy spells for money with having the relation penalty for having the entropy mana)...etc

my proposition was for balance purpose :
-those academies are more interesting than regular academies and roughly equal or more interesting than mastercrafstmen.
-most of them are more intersting than the holy shrines you based your idea on (your 1st post) but they have a lot less restriction... (you chose the city, you can have many academies while the religions may be founded by rivals...etc) and to me : "each water tile gives 1commerce" is more powerful than "each city of X religion gives you 1gold"

As I'd rather have you add restriction than lower the boni gained through the magical acadmies I proposed :
-world wonder ==> to add some restriction
-mana + mundane tech ==> to rise the cost : ex fire academy needs firemana + KOE+ ironworking (forge) or + plasting powder (depends on the "price" you want to give to the fire academy...), water acedmy needs watermana + KOE+ sailing, nature academy : nature mana + KOE+ poison/hunting ...Etc
maybe some academies may need the same tech...Etc

it really depends on knowing if the fire academy is worth more than water academy or not:

for knowing the worth of the academy you have to count:
-the gain from the academy (the effect you devised)
-the worth of the lvl1 &lvl2 spell learnt... maybe you could make yourself a grid
(don't care about the lvl3 : 500gold is enough to make them all equal)

my 0.2

well for all it's worth It's your module so it will always be your call !

 

[Jojomo]

That's why I would consider it best to enable the spell that let's you achieve the spell promotions to everyone not only the builder. You could look for the other Academies to be founded in other lands and then make an open border treaty to visit it with your Mages.
Therewith doing so is advantageous for both sides how giving a certain amount of gold to the controller of the Academy each time the training spells are cast (about 20% of the price should be ok). This means being liberal in distributing your arcane knowledge can quite profitable for you granting you a significant economical boost.

It may actually be possible to learn the spells if you're in a foreign city with the academy already, though I haven't tested this yet. As for giving some money to the owner when this occurs, I'm not really sure how to go about that

Spoiler :

well Jojomo,
I may have been misunderstood..

I proposed mana + mundane tech (+Knowledge of the Ether)
instead of "mana + related mana tech : elementalisme/necomancy/divination/alteration.
why ?
-because you don't have to have the elementalisme tech to start a study on the fire mana you have in your palace...
-because your proposition is focused into the arcane line and you would propose 21 additonal wonders for the arcane path.
my proposition mana +mundane tech, allows a spreading of the wonders, in the same way that the mastercraftsmen, requiring a GE, are spread through the tech tree.

why a wonder ?it is my purpose but I disagree with your conculsions...
first : why not make them, for the lore "as centres of learning within the world".
-then : if someone make one before you : you won't be deprived of the training ability, only of the training ability in one mana... if you are deprived of fire academy, just go for the air or ice academy or the entropy academy (allows you to learn entropy spells for money with having the relation penalty for having the entropy mana)...etc

my proposition was for balance purpose :
-those academies are more interesting than regular academies and roughly equal or more interesting than mastercrafstmen.
-most of them are more intersting than the holy shrines you based your idea on (your 1st post) but they have a lot less restriction... (you chose the city, you can have many academies while the religions may be founded by rivals...etc) and to me : "each water tile gives 1commerce" is more powerful than "each city of X religion gives you 1gold"

As I'd rather have you add restriction than lower the boni gained through the magical acadmies I proposed :
-world wonder ==> to add some restriction
-mana + mundane tech ==> to rise the cost : ex fire academy needs firemana + KOE+ ironworking (forge) or + plasting powder (depends on the "price" you want to give to the fire academy...), water acedmy needs watermana + KOE+ sailing, nature academy : nature mana + KOE+ poison/hunting ...Etc
maybe some academies may need the same tech...Etc

it really depends on knowing if the fire academy is worth more than water academy or not:

for knowing the worth of the academy you have to count:
-the gain from the academy (the effect you devised)
-the worth of the lvl1 &lvl2 spell learnt... maybe you could make yourself a grid
(don't care about the lvl3 : 500gold is enough to make them all equal)

my 0.2

well for all it's worth It's your module so it will always be your call !

Calavente, your idea about the tech prerequisites sounds reasonable, I'll wait for some feedback before I think about that more though.

As far as "centres of learning within the world" go, I can't imagine most of the nations in Erebus cooperating long enough to manage a trade treaty, let alone sharing the secrets of burning armies to cinders, but maybe I'm just a cynic.

Regarding them being more powerful than existing academies, I suppose that depends what you want; if its the training ability then you're probably right, but if it's the research boost, only one of the academies gives that, then you're back to the regular type if you want others.

I actually had a grid of all the spells (although that was for vanilla FfH2, some versions ago...) but I wonder if scattering them throughout the tech tree would make people neglect them. The thing about the master craftsmen is the tech that enables them is in the tech line that they augment (or at least a related one in the case of the Master Smith and Rancher).

However, this can all wait, since I'm happy to announce that the first version of Arcane Academies is now released!

The pedia still needs fleshing out, and I've not yet implemented the effects I wanted for all the academies, but the functionality is there and they all have at least a token effect. Any testing/feedback is much appreciated and thanks again to everybody who's offered input so far.

 

[nikosison]

Academy of Flame (Fire): Melee units in the city can buy the Immolation promotion for 25 gold (+2 Fire , -1 Attack , -3 Defense )

This is almost always worse that your body acad (which gives +1/+1 for *free* and enhanced healing rate for the units in the city).

 

[Calavente]

Jojomo :
The Academy of thought is better than a Regular Academy : Same bonus + allows spells to be learnt.
As it is a national wonder, maybe you can say that it is equal to the regular Academy .. but I would disagree : having + 100% science through the 2Academies (thought + regular) in 1 city is worth it (the second academy is thus worth more than the 1st one) + allowing to learn spell.

But it is true that all the academies you proposed have effect that are not worth the same....
water acadmy is worth a "Heron Throne" in each coastal city... 2 in the city that haves the Heron Throne
Mind, creation, force, Life, body, law are all very strong ones, Air depends on the map

While entropy, sun, earth, fire... have less interesting effects, maybe less interesting than regular academy.

I'll think about it a bit more

 

[Mercutio46]

Just to say, cracking idea. Cracking.

 

[bardliam]

Where do I unpack the files to, and what requirements are there before GS's can build these?

 

[Jojomo]

To install the module, start from where BTS is installed, and navigate to:

...Beyond the Sword\Mods\Rise from Erebus\Assets\Modules\NormalModules

Extract the archive to a folder in this directory.

Also, you should check your Rise from Erebus.ini file (found in ...Beyond the Sword\Mods\Rise from Erebus) and ensure that the modular loading option is set to 1 (if I remember correctly).

This is the same method you'd use for any other module (as far as I know anyway). Come to think of it, is this information stickied anywhere on the forum? I don't recall seeing it, but I've been lurking for years and may have learned it by osmosis.

To build any academy, you need the same technology you'd need to build a mana node to get the related mana type (Elementalism for Academy of Flame, Necromancy for Academy of Bones etc.) and you need access to that type of mana (Fire mana for Academy of Flame, Death mana for Academy of Bones etc.). I'll maybe need to edit the first post, since a few people seem to find my notes unclear.

 

[Gravage]

Enjoying the mod a lot as the Amurites, however, one comment.
Could you please disable the academies from getting burnt down by fires and such? I just had my Academy of the Soul burn down in my GP farm city, and it was kinda detrimental to keep it up.

 

[inuyashasama]

Wow, finally a use for the Great Sage. I focus on tech a lot in my games, so I often end up with four or more vanilla, unimpressive academies by the time the game is over. This is great .

 

[Gravage]

Hm, something that seems to be a bit odd - when I was training some wizards with academies earlier on, they could train at several academies at the same time. Even different sphere levels. Im trying to do this with Govannon now, too, however, the moment I click the train promotion, all the others dissapear.


So my guess would be that hero units cant do several, where normal units can? Will do more testing along the lines of this game and will get back to tell you if this is right.

 

[Almagafor]

Been playing with these for a little while now and I think the training times need about a 25% drop.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Just a short word, would Academy of Flesh not be more appropriate for Body magic than Academy of Blood? The later sounds eerily Calibim.

 

[25Hour]

Sorry to thread necro, but it occurs to me that what with the Arcane trait not doing a whole lot currently, having it grant access to these buildings could be an interesting and flavorful way of boosting the trait, or even form the basis for one of its own.

Anyway, that's why I was thinking it would be cool to incorporate a slightly modified version of this into my Leader/Trait mod in some way-- could I have your permission to do that? It's some really neat stuff you've got going, here.

 

[Valkrionn]

Sorry to thread necro, but it occurs to me that what with the Arcane trait not doing a whole lot currently, having it grant access to these buildings could be an interesting and flavorful way of boosting the trait, or even form the basis for one of its own.

Anyway, that's why I was thinking it would be cool to incorporate a slightly modified version of this into my Leader/Trait mod in some way-- could I have your permission to do that? It's some really neat stuff you've got going, here.

We have plans for the Arcane trait, so having that might make it OP.