Please STOP nerfing magic!!

[KillerClowns]

I imagine the cause of your necromancy is .40y, change 6?

...6. Cities reduce spell damage by a quarter of their city defense to units in them (so pyre zomebies, tsunamis, ring of flames, pillar or flames, etc isnt as effective against units in well fortified cities)...

So, there's these things that you can use to break down city defenses. Those wooden things you get at Construction. They're called catapults. They hurl rocks (or cows) at defenses to weaken them. If those aren't to your taste, you need only fireball your enemy's defenses, THEN smash them with the tsunami/ring of fire/maelstrom. Requiring tactics beyond "hit 'em with tsunami" is hardly "dumbing down."
EDIT: Ninja'd. But my rant wasn't.
EDIT 2:

...The nerf to Tsunami is actually pretty brutal. The first one is bad if you can't find Fire Mana anywhere since it's the only fortification buster. I think all the damage spells should do some damage to fortification if this change is going to remain in effect. If the fortifications are defending the people inside they must be taking the spells to the face, or wall, or whatever.

I agree about at least some damage spells doing damage to fortifications, and tsunami's nerfing was a pretty big hit. But, in case you've forgotten, there's a fortification buster that doesn't require any mana.

EDIT 3: Yikes. Read my post out loud. Didn't mean to come out sounding so nasty. It's just that I don't believe that FfH should be as reliant upon magic as it is. I'd prefer that conventional tactics be made stronger, rather than arcane ones made weaker, but they are definitely not balanced as of .40x. I'll see about .40y, and may end up eating my words.

 

[Asthix]

I just want to know what the rationale is for the multiple 50% down to 30% changes over the last months. Or where I can find it in the threads.

 

[KillerClowns]

I just want to know what the rationale is for the multiple 50% down to 30% changes over the last months. Or where I can find it in the threads.

Well, now that you've asked, I'm pretty sure that Kael and Co. will answer your question. If they don't do so in a few days, assume they haven't checked this thread and send them a PM asking about it.

 

[Earthling]

Oh, well I'd support the fact that they nerfed tsunami then! Honestly that doesn't seem like a big deal at all. Always seemed odd that a spell available to multiple units is as devastating as the much more limited spells of Chalid, or the Illian High Priests. If you're playing a "world map" OO already dominates anything on the water; combined with the fact that the AI almost never even get the religion on their own or compete with you in any way makes it very strong as it is.

@Iceciro - I'd think you could just take the time then to bombard the defensive bonuses down to zero (assuming that's what the city defense bonus means right, not the garrison promotion?). Maelstrom/Ring of Flames are already reasonable for stack damage too. Also unless I'm mistaken catapults still have an insane 80% withdraw - you can still accomplish sieges without much magic at all if necessary. Edit: Ninja here, but yeah - as far as I can tell only relying on fireballs isn't very good anyway, don't know why it's such a very, very popular strategy (and people get mad when it doesn't always work...)

So maybe my problem was I never saw the system before 0.34 - I don't know how powerful magic was back then. But it seems now that much of the balance is towards the upper-level magic units/heroes devastating, and I'm happy with that. Magic resistances are rare/hard to achieve so getting an edge is still hard to counter. But I wouldn't like to see situations where two otherwise even stacks, with one having just a single caster or two (and not even at tier 4) being able to completely dominate. Also, at some point if magic becomes too powerful then some civs are likewise too strong (if Arcane/Spiritual and all keep working the way they do). For both flavor and balance I'm happy with just a couple civs being able to manage with mostly magic (Amurites, Sheiam) and not auto-dominating either. The last problem is that the AI simply can't (and it's not fair to blame this on design, because it's simply a limitation of AI) use magic well. It's already an excellent clean-up tool; but basically magic being really strong isn't actually balanced, it just helps the human win quicker (and I'd think a lot of problems with magic then spill over into mp, where balance is most necessary).

 

[notque]

I'd guess he means this

6. Cities reduce spell damage by a quarter of their city defense to units in them (so pyre zomebies, tsunamis, ring of flames, pillar or flames, etc isnt as effective against units in well fortified cities).
7. Tsunami's average damage reduced from 50% to 30%.

The nerf to Tsunami is actually pretty brutal. The first one is bad if you can't find Fire Mana anywhere since it's the only fortification buster. I think all the damage spells should do some damage to fortification if this change is going to remain in effect. If the fortifications are defending the people inside they must be taking the spells to the face, or wall, or whatever.

Max Dmg wasn't changed, so it's just average. That's not so bad.

 

[Iceciro]

My problem is that now instead of magic being an appropriate choice, I have to go and fetch construction and build catapults now in addition to bringing mages along. That's a pain in the butt, frankly. Construction isn't, but needing to bring more units to a seige is. Sorcery is a much higher tech than Construction, t2 spells should damage fortifications at least as well, if they don't ignore them outright.

Yes, you should be able to win without magic. On the other hand, I really think you should be able to win as well with Magic if you put the same kind of investment you do into other things.

 

[Bitwise]

As long as the cap is set the same you just need more mages.

 

[notque]

Yeah, you just have to bring more along.

 

[Earthling]

Frankly I don't see why this should be a problem for you (though beelining Sorcery too much could really hurt, depending on the civ). You've got a number of options: fireballs can directly bombard city defense down to 0 anyway, and then you can potentially have both fireballs and maelstrom among your mages (along with whatever other 2nd rank spells you want). Assuming you're on an equal footing with your opponent catapults aren't necessary- the least you'll need is some melee with those mages and that's only fair, no one should walk into battle with an army of only casters. But the important thing is that catapults/nonmagic are a balanced choice - for civs who are never going to go far down the magic line anyway, it wouldn't be fair if mages/fireballs were always superior.

 

[Lade]

Hmm, I'm glad I did the Momus before these changes

Then again, I guess you didn't HAVE to go with octopus overlords, but even so, Tsunami probably didn't deserve a nerf, considering you have to be next to water to use it

 

[Kael]

The rational for cities providing some damage resistance to spells is:

1. Fun: zap zap attack and repeat isnt fun, and isnt very interesting strategy. I know fun is relative and people enjoy different things, so at some point this becomes a judgement call.

2. Function: Defense is intended to have the advantage 1 to 1. Attackers have the advantage that they get to pick their target and time of attack (and quite a few other things) but everything else being equal the advantage is supposed to go to the defense. Fortified in a city should provide the best defense, but prior to this change you were as vulnerable to a ring of flames if you were in a well fortified city protected by walls as you were standing in an open field. I would like defense to mean something (and the fact that it boosts the eventual combat that must occur doesnt mean a whole lot when spells knock you down to 25% your life first).

2a. Area of effect spells are in no danger of being underpowered.
2b. The change is fairly minor.

3. Flavor: it seems like all those walls and fortifications should help a bit from these spells.


The rational for tsunami being weakened is:

1. Fun: I like that OO rule the coasts, I like that tsunami is very powerful on the coast and useless away from it. My only problem was that, when it worked, it was to efficient. Incrediably efficient for a world unit, let alone a spammable t3 unit. Tsunami gets to be overpowered when it is useful because there is a lot of situations where it isnt, but it was too good.

2. Function: I want to retain the ability to decimate, but make it less efficient. So I opted to keep the damage max (they can still drop stacks to 25% their life) but the attacking player is going to have to invest more in the strategy (going to have to bring a couple cultists to do it as quickly).

3. Flavor: either way the flavor is the same, this is just about balance.

 

[notque]

Makes sense to me, seems like a very minor change.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I really do not like the way "balance" of Maelstorm and Tsunami was done. Instead of redusing max damage, I thing there should be a timer netween casts. 2 turns should have been fine. So, a unit that casted maelstorm ot tsunami wouldn't be able to cast again for the next 2 turns.

EDIT: Although I agree with the city bonus vs magic, I do not thing that nerfing all max damages to 30% is a minor change.

 

[notque]

I really do not like the way "balance" of Maelstorm and Tsunami was done. Instead of redusing max damage, I thing there should be a timer netween casts. 2 turns should have been fine. So, a unit that casted maelstorm ot tsunami wouldn't be able to cast again for the next 2 turns.

EDIT: Although I agree with the city bonus vs magic, I do not thing that nerfing all max damages to 30% is a minor change.

Max damage wasn't reduced, average damage was.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

My mistake.
Still, I think casting delay is a more fair option. Arcane casters have been nerfed so much, that the best way to enjoy casting some spells is by using priests.

 

[Bitwise]

I just tag 3 Cultists onto my coastal invasion force instead of 2. This is really no big deal.

 

[Valkrionn]

I completely agree with the changes. I don't want to invest hammers in palisades and walls only to have a single mage nullify the advantage they give me. With Tsunami, just take a few more cultists... The overall dmg isn't any different, just takes a few more units to achieve it.

 

[Imuratep]

And it's a pretty elegant way to protect from pyre zombies without really nerfing them. Khazad got just much stronger though. 20% (culture)+10 %(palisade) + 25% (walls) +20% (khazad bonus) +25% (wall of stone cast by an adept)=90% defense and -50% bombardement, that's means a lot of fireballs until you can attack with them.
By the way do walls also reduce the collateral damage dealt by fireballs?

 

[Senethro]

The big problem with PZs was that you couldn't run away, you had to stay and weather the exploding damage. The alternative was to abandon your cities. This change has very neatly solved that problem.

 

[Iceciro]

on reflection, I agree with this change, as long as - as I said - the AoE spells that do not do full damage reduce the fortification bonus, at least by some small number, so theoretically if you did not have access to fire mana you wouldn't be toasted (ha!) without catapults. If you had the time you could, for instance, beat down a wall with Maelstrom. This would give defenders time to reinforce/kill the stack, though.

Tsunami doesn't bother me now that you've pointed out it's not a max damage thing.