Multiple Mana?

[Yarnosh]

Is there some benefit to having access to more than one source of the same type of mana? I've heard of people talk about "loading up on law mana." What is the purpose of this? Most other resources only require a single source to have their affect and the rest is surplus that you can trade away.

 

[JFSebastian]

There are two reasons to get multiple sources of the same mana type.

Free Magic Promotions
For each extra source of a particular mana type, arcane units will start with extra promotions of that spell sphere. For instance, if you have 2 sources of death mana, your adepts will start with death I. If you had 3 sources of death mana, then your mages would start with death I and death II.

Stacking Effects
Many of the mana resources give you benefits. Enchantment is like a happy resource, Mind boosts research, Earth increases the chance of mines spawning resources. These benefits will add up with multiple sources of mana. In the case of Law mana, the ability to decrease maintenance will add up.

 

[someone67]

There are two reasons to get multiple sources of the same mana type.

Free Magic Promotions
For each extra source of a particular mana type, arcane units will start with extra promotions of that spell sphere. For instance, if you have 2 sources of death mana, your adepts will start with death I. If you had 3 sources of death mana, then your mages would start with death I and death II.

Stacking Effects
Many of the mana resources give you benefits. Enchantment is like a happy resource, Mind boosts research, Earth increases the chance of mines spawning resources. These benefits will add up with multiple sources of mana. In the case of Law mana, the ability to decrease maintenance will add up.

And the affinaty of some units to specific mana types- for example fire/water/air/earth/ice elementals get one point of raw strength for each source of fire/water/air/earth/ice mana you control.

 

[Guybrush!]

Some manas are better for stacking than others, as spamming death mana gives you very powerfull summons. Spam law mana to get very low maintenence.

 

[solanacea]

Then, the question is "is there any reason not to spam your civ's starting mana?" Getting access to many spells looks cool but your mage can cast only one of it per turn anyways.

 

[Kjara]

Well.. at times you need utility spells that aren't part of your starting mana. If you start in the desert, you prob will want to grab 1 point of water mana for spring. Having a single point of mana for enchanted blade,haste + regeneration, courage, are all good spells that you only need one point of mana to take advantage of(well 2 body if you really need regen to be free). There are quite a few useful level 1 and 2 spells that you can have your adepts casting here and there, while your mages/archmages concentrate on 1-3 lines likely. This isn't true for all of the mana types of course. If you don't start with death, and don't plan on grabbing alot of it, its not worth grabbing a single point of it, but many of the more support mana types are quite useful with a single point in it.

 

[solanacea]

Still, stockpiling death mana seems overpowered, though I haven't tried it myself (I mostly play good/neutral civs and try to build at least one of the towers for fun).

 

[Grey Fox]

Having two of each mana while building adepts can be a nice way of getting some free promotions. And/or 3 mana when upgrading to Mages for free tier I and II promos, and 4 when upgrading Archmages or building an Archmage Hero (like Govannon, Hemah or Gibbon).

I also like having as many pairs of mana as possible when building Govannon, to give him more promotions to train others.

Still, stockpiling death mana seems overpowered, though I haven't tried it myself (I mostly play good/neutral civs and try to build at least one of the towers for fun).

While stockpiling Death mana can be good, the mana have no secondary effect and there are plenty of counters. Destroy Undead being the strongest. Many races are immune to Death. Golems, Illusions, Demons, to name a few.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Sure, some do, but everyone else gets wtfpwnd by strength 10 specters. If you are a summoner civ, it's easily the best way to go.

 

[PanzerWolf]

Didn't know of the free magic promotion Thanks

 

[popejubal]

Sure, some do, but everyone else gets wtfpwnd by strength 10 specters. If you are a summoner civ, it's easily the best way to go.

...if you have 9 mana nodes available and the time to get to Sorcery and the time to let your Adepts grow to 10 XP by either attacking Barbs or by waiting for a very long time.

If the Hippus haven't destroyed your empire by then, you deserve to have an advantage as a Human player. Please note that I'm not saying lots of Death Mana isn't a strong tactic. It is. It's just not the instant formula for easy success that some people seem to think.

 

[Grey Fox]

And if it's MP you are gonna need to have protection for your mages and your cities or you gonna die horribly.

 

[Zechnophobe]

...if you have 9 mana nodes available and the time to get to Sorcery and the time to let your Adepts grow to 10 XP by either attacking Barbs or by waiting for a very long time.

If the Hippus haven't destroyed your empire by then, you deserve to have an advantage as a Human player. Please note that I'm not saying lots of Death Mana isn't a strong tactic. It is. It's just not the instant formula for easy success that some people seem to think.

Didn't say anything about 9 mana nodes. 10 Strength spectres requires 6 (for the sheaim), which is a fair bit, but not truly insane.

Besides, even if you 'only' have 3 or 4, your mages pump out Champion strength units each turn.

Lastly, Sheiam also get mobius witches, and Calabim get Vampires, each can get that second level of death magic earlier than an actual wizard.

Anyhow, this is was in comparison to getting 'two of each' of a bunch of different mana types, so your adepts get a lot of free spells. I'd take strength 10 spectres over 3 extra level 1 promotions.

 

[Caradoc]

Don't overlook the possibility of using Dispell Magic to refit mana nodes.

 

[popejubal]

Didn't say anything about 9 mana nodes. 10 Strength spectres requires 6 (for the sheaim), which is a fair bit, but not truly insane.

I thought you meant Spectres with +10 strength. By bad.

I still do think it's not a broken mechanic (although I do agree it is very strong) since it requires you to get to a tech level that isn't guaranteed and the Sheim seem to die pretty quick when the AI is playing them. I've only played one game with them so far and it was a tough game for me since it was the first time I ran the Armegeddon Clock up intentionally.

I was very surprised by some of the units that I had to face and I never bothered to cultivate a source of Spirit magic.

 

[MasterofDisasta]

I think Mobius Witches are one of the best reasons to amass mana. Having witches who spawn with a few random spheres is okay, but gets some nodes in groups and you can get respawning fireballers or specter casters that don't require the brewing period of adepts. Makes defending your rank and file spellcasters much less important when they will just respawn with the same promotions in a few turns.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I thought you meant Spectres with +10 strength. By bad.

I still do think it's not a broken mechanic (although I do agree it is very strong) since it requires you to get to a tech level that isn't guaranteed and the Sheim seem to die pretty quick when the AI is playing them. I've only played one game with them so far and it was a tough game for me since it was the first time I ran the Armegeddon Clock up intentionally.

I was very surprised by some of the units that I had to face and I never bothered to cultivate a source of Spirit magic.

Yeah, I've really started to like the Sheaim, after I got a feel for how to pace them. Religion -> Pyre zombies -> Sorcery is a generally good route to take. PZ's are truly worth it, and are very consistent. Same thing is true with Spectre's, because they are summons of good strength.

Generally you need to make sure to survive until sorcery, and keep your economy up too, which is a hard thing to keep together. However I think a cadre of Mobius witches and mages is actually about on par with Chalid for being a game ender. Spectre stacks conquer really fast.

 

[hbar]

The amurites are the one civ that benefits from not specializing in one mana type. Their UB (Cave of Ancestors) grants +1 XP to adepts for each unique mana type (this is not at all clear in the pedia). They also start with metamagic mana from their palace, and the meta III summon, Djinn, has +1 affinity for every mana type (but low base strength, making it only useful if you have many different mana types).

 

[Grey Fox]

The thing is, if it hasn't changed recently, they get +1 for every mana no matter if they are of the same, and has always done so.

Again, unless it has recently changed.

 

[hbar]

It may have been changed to that (any mana) since I checked, but I know I reported it as a bug in 0.31 or 0.32, and was informed that the design intention was for the bonus XP to be granted only for unique mana. I even checked the python (don't have it installed here, so I can't doublecheck the current implementation, but I believe it was in the onUnitCreate function...somewhere).

EDIT: in CvEventManager.py, function onUnitBuilt v0.40s:

		if (city.getNumRealBuilding(gc.getInfoTypeForString('BUILDING_CAVE_OF_ANCESTORS')) > 0 and unit.getUnitCombatType() == (gc.getInfoTypeForString('UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT'))):
			i = 0
			for iBonus in range(gc.getNumBonusInfos()):
				if gc.getBonusInfo(iBonus).getBonusClassType() == gc.getInfoTypeForString('BONUSCLASS_MANA'):
					[B]if city.hasBonus(iBonus):
						i = i + 1[/B]
			if i >= 1:
				unit.changeExperience(i, -1, False, False, False)

If it were for any mana (even duplicates) the code would be

if city.hasBonus(iBonus)
     i = i + city.getNumBonus(iBonus)

I brought this up in the bug thread only to find it is working as designed.