More Spells Brainstorming

Oh, it's not that the effect of vitalize sucks, it's that having to wait until Nature 3 does.
 
Yes, when you think only in the short term of a single combat or a single war Vitalize appears weak. But I tend to play builder style and really like at least one caster that can cast it. Vitalize gives your cities more food which in the long run means more citizens. More citizens means more commerce, production, and/or great persons. More commerce means better research. Better research means more advanced units. More production means quicker builds and therefore a bigger army. So ultimately Vitalize can give you bigger and more advanced armies, and that will win wars just as well as, if not better than, the more combat oriented third tier spells.

Vitalize definitely isn't weak. The point here is mainly that spring and scorch are only lv1 spells, and both of them offer significant terraforming abilities.

More food is good, yes. But vitalizing a plains tile gives you less production, too. It's completely useless for fallow civs, and anyone who relies on a special terrain type.

Nobody is saying that vitalize is weak .But rather we're saying, why is grasslands such an inacessible holy grail spell that must be lv3, while the utility offered by the other spells is only lv1.

I'd say, change vitalize to exclusively affect plains > grassland, make the other spells required for other terraforming as needed, and downgrade it to a lv1 or 2 spell. Also move it to the Creation sphere
 
More food is good, yes. But vitalizing a plains tile gives you less production, too.

To a point. If it's a plain, you might be forced to put a farm there, because you need the food. If it's a grass tile, you might have put a windmill, mine, watermill, or workshop there, boosting your production more than a plain. Also more food means you work more tiles or have more specialists, which also translates into more production (especially once great persons are taken into account). Then, there's whipping.
 
meh, I run out of happiness before I run out of food typically. I scorch grasslands to plains often.
 
Personally, I think Vitalize WAS fine... When it was the only way to improve tundra, or plains. Now scorch can take tundra down to plains, and in FFPlus spring can take plains to grass. Odalrick's version of vitalize keeps it useful.

For one thing, it terraforms an area around the caster... One ring base, expands up to 3 with both spell extension promos. For another, and possibly more important, the terrain it upgrades to can be changed for each civ. Illians want snow, not grass... They get it. Same for Malakim and desert, or the lizards and marsh.

I like utility spells for adepts like spring and scorch; But one as powerful as Odalrick's vitalize is useful too. :goodjob:

Edit: Reminds me... One of our new Kindred spells for the Jotnar freezes terrain. Need to make sure the Illians have access to that....
 
I could see something like that at Nature II - Because you still need to invest the extension promos to make it really uber, and at T2 it's still better and worth it compared to getting both Scorch and Spring.

Plus it would let me do something really neat at Nature III - assuming we're still going by the one per spell level thing, which I probabaly won't be.
 
I thought of another fun spell, probably Chaos.

Berserk/Enrage/Charge: Gives +1 offensive :strength:, +2 first strikes, -100% withdrawal chance. Only affects the strongest melee or mounted unit in the stack. Does not work on summoned units. Lasts for 1 turn.

After that turn, the affected unit gets the 'Totally exhausted' promotion for 2 turns. Gives -2 defensive :strength:, -100% withdrawal chance and the unit can't attack.


So it's useful to overwhelm a strong enemy once but with heavy consequences afterwards.
 
Does anybody know when this will be implemented? Some of the spells are looking really nice for bringing more epic death and destruction upon Erebus :D
 
Does anybody know when this will be implemented? Some of the spells are looking really nice for bringing more epic death and destruction upon Erebus :D

Yeah, i cant wait for the AI to bring those up against me :badcomp:
 
Does anybody know when this will be implemented? Some of the spells are looking really nice for bringing more epic death and destruction upon Erebus :D

Basically, expect a kael/xienwolf level of progress timing...
in other words, when I feel like getting around to it and when it's done you'll know.

I have a lot of stuff on my plate, but the idea is to get everybody's brainstorming consolidated into a single place so when I am ready, bang, idea well.
 
Some more general thoughts

1. Some duplication between spheres is fine. For example, Rust works great as a water spell and an entropy spell...let them both have it.

2. Each mana sphere should have a "theme". Not so much a balance issue here as a fun issue. For example, Fire and Sun could be very difficult to distinguish...virtually any effect for one could be easily rationalized as fitting into the other. If we define Fire as being all about barely controlled destructive power and Sun about light and large-scale heat/illumination then they become distinctive. Looked at this way, Fiery Chariot(summon a flying chariot with cargo capacity) is obviously a Sun spell: not destructive, very controlled, mythic ties to the Sun. Blaze(which I would upgrade to pillaging all non-unique improvements and wiping features clean) is a slam-dunk Fire spell.

3. Adding little twists to spells really helps make them fun. Blaze, for example, could heal the caster. The Fire mage destroys everything around him and feeds on the destruction.

4. Benefits for mana resources. Some have this right now. All of them should have SOME civ-wide benefit. Not game-breaking by any means...just a reward for specializing. Minor production boost for Fire Mana at the cost of Health, for example.

5. Some minor benefit for the promos themselves. Fire resistance for Fire, etc...

6. Some spheres should be just plain mutually exclusive. Fire and Ice. Chaos and Law. Life and Death. Etc...

7. Problem with too many spells. Valkrionn has a solution in his ammo promos in FF+. Treat individual spells like ammo. Fire 1 gives you Blaze, for example (could be set as an auto-acquire promo). Allow an adept in a city with a mage guild to pick up Little Fireball or Zippo of Relatively Minor Doom...overwriting Blaze. Next time he makes it back home he can grab Blaze again if he chooses. There is probably a way to allow multiple spells as a special benefit for the Amurites etc...I'd have to think on that one a bit.
 
7. Problem with too many spells. Valkrionn has a solution in his ammo promos in FF+. Treat individual spells like ammo. Fire 1 gives you Blaze, for example (could be set as an auto-acquire promo). Allow an adept in a city with a mage guild to pick up Little Fireball or Zippo of Relatively Minor Doom...overwriting Blaze. Next time he makes it back home he can grab Blaze again if he chooses. There is probably a way to allow multiple spells as a special benefit for the Amurites etc...I'd have to think on that one a bit.

Hmmm. That's a neat way of doing it... could even call it "Prepare spell: Spellname" and harken back to FFH's D&D roots.
 
Another idea:

Summoned creatures could have an "unsummon" command where they get stored in some sort of spellstone where they could get re-summoned again. They'd keep their hitpoints, experience and promotions.
So summons could become a little more than just improved fireballs.

Of course, it would have to be limited somehow. Maybe make spellstones a resource... for each spellstone you have, you can store 1 summon.
 
Another idea:

Summoned creatures could have an "unsummon" command where they get stored in some sort of spellstone where they could get re-summoned again. They'd keep their hitpoints, experience and promotions.
So summons could become a little more than just improved fireballs.

Of course, it would have to be limited somehow. Maybe make spellstones a resource... for each spellstone you have, you can store 1 summon.


Maybe you could hunt down and imprison monsters in these "spellstones".


"Margalard...I choose you!"
 
Oh dear god no. I was in middle school during that craze. Horrible, horrible flashbacks.
 
Just my opinion. I feel that overhauls to the general spell system might be a bit beyond the scope of this module, which was just to add MOAR spells.
 
I actually thought about a 'spell-book' type system, but never got around to posting it... Glad Vermicious saw it too. :goodjob:

As for the 'spellstones'.... I was in middle school for that too. :lol: Of course, now my friends abd I find it funny... Whenever one of us calls another, the Pokemon theme plays. :lol: Rather awkward in public... But lots of fun when you KNOW they don't want that going off. Say... In a bar, while they're trying to pick someone up. :satan:

I think I may have to make a very rare item, the 'MasterBall'. Allows you to capture an animal, and summon on command. :lol:
 
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