Reason behind the civs mana?

[Lord Yanaek]

I was wondering how to weight civs closeness, in case some discussion arose concerning my idea for random civs and teams there. I thought maybe the mana used by civs could be used to localize the civs on the mana chart and we would see some pattern, clusters of civs, depending on mana production by palace.
Hmm ... i don't see any

I now wonder if there was some reasoning behind the choice. I know all man have not been implemented, but was the mana opposition considered. Or simply did you thought : "mhh, this mana would be cool for that civ, let's use it".
Bannors for instace use both spirit and earth mana while they are on opposite branches.
Svartalfar currently have both Mind and Enchantment : those are absolute opposite manas
...
Example are numerous. There doesn't seem to be any pattern in mana choice for civs.

Oh, this was a quick and dirty work, i just positioned the civs visually, did'nt measure anything. I can however create a better chart in case someone is interested, and in case mana production from capitol is revised for shadow and you want to create some sort of pattern.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Actually there's some pattern. Mercurians & infernals, lanun & khazad, lurchuip & balseraphs and ilians & malakim are opposites. (very irrelevant but interesting realistic opposites)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, each civ is designed to represent one particular sphere, then given two more that seem appropriate (although a few of them do seem rather random). In some cases, the mana types are just temporary placeholders that for the mana types that aren't implemented yet (shadow, Sun, metamagic, ice, etc).

I think a few of the choices were made more for balance than thematic reasons. I'm guessing that the team didn't want a civ to start with multiple mana types that would be unlocked by the same tech (Divination, Alteration, Elementalism, or Necromancy), because that would give them an advantage in building the Tower national wonder associated with each and a disadvantage at building the other towers (each tower requires mana from any 3 of its tech's mana types). Some civs (like the Bannor) actually do have two types from the same sphere, but none have all three.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Well, having all 3 of one tech, and none from the others wouldn't be that unbalancing. The wonders are national, so even if they can build it sooner, others will be able to build it too. They would have a harder time building other towers so that would re-balance them.

Would it be possible to know which civs will have mana replaced in the future, so i could put them on the chart and see if this gives more interesting results?

 

[zxcvbnm]

It should actually be a 4-dimensional picture to provide an exact image of each civs mana position. 2 dimensions to show elemental and 2 to show
Don't know which version is used but (probably) malakim get sun instead of fire, svartalfar get shadow, ilians ice, and grigori force. Or at least it would seem logical.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

That's more magic spheres than Pokemon types. Good luck thinking of unique spell effects with those. More seriously though, I noticed some magic types are missing, and understandably so. It's interesting enough that you came up with as many as 21 angels, but still, from a gameplay perspective, it's hard to think of one sphere corresponding to one civilization, even though it makes storyline sense.

Perhaps some spheres have spells, and some manifest themselves in other forms... although it's only fun if those other forms are obvious.

 

[zxcvbnm]

I have been thinking of creation mana as the way to vitalize lands from hell, restore lost resources etc.
Sun mana is something empyrean and shadow is related with the council of esus.
Ice might have some cool winter spells
About force, umm... no idea how they are going to use it, same with metamagic

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I think metamagic is about controlling other magic. Like making squares where enemies cannot do magic, etc. I think force will be about defense. Pushing enemies away, creating force field, etc. Just guesses. I think the genie is going to become a metamagic summon.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Would it be possible to know which civs will have mana replaced in the future, so I could put them on the chart and see if this gives more interesting results?

Shadow and Sun mana will be added; metamagic, creation, and force may be, but Kael might feel that that is too many and it doesn't add anything to add them.
If you fill those in, for example to svartalfar, it might make more sense, but other than the mana for the slot which a civ is themed after, they might not have story reasons behind them--"just" gameplay reasons.
For example, Grigori used to have life mana, but the resurection spell doesn't work on their heroes, and the spirit mana mechanic fits with their mechanic, so it was switched with version 22 or 23.

 

[zxcvbnm]

I think metamagic is about controlling other magic. Like making squares where enemies cannot do magic, etc. I think force will be about defense. Pushing enemies away, creating force field, etc. Just guesses. I think the genie is going to become a metamagic summon.

That sounds logical

Shadow and Sun mana will be added; metamagic, creation, and force may be, but Kael might feel that that is too many and it doesn't add anything to add them.
If you fill those in, for example to svartalfar, it might make more sense, but other than the mana for the slot which a civ is themed after, they might not have story reasons behind them--"just" gameplay reasons.
For example, Grigori used to have life mana, but the resurection spell doesn't work on their heroes, and the spirit mana mechanic fits with their mechanic, so it was switched with version 22 or 23.

How about my ideas of creation mana being the way to revitalize the lands after hell?
Creation III =restore lands (removes hell, has a chance to upgrade terrain and add biological resources, the bigger chance the fewer resources left in the world, as a way to restore the world after hell has removed bio-res and rivers)

 

[xienwolf]

What I would like to know is not neccessarily about the starting mana, but the other aspects of the starting castles. Some have 3 mana + NICE bonuses. Others 3 mana + penalties. And 2 of them have 2 Mana + resource.

Khazad getting gold instead of a third mana... mostly makes sense. Hippus getting horses instead of a third mana.... Seems too convenient, and mildly unreasoned.

But mainly: Why do some civs get 2 mana with game effect bonuses, and others get none. And why do some civs get castle bonuses, and others penalties?

 

[Scott Alexander]

I think the palace bonuses or penalties are supposed to encourage you to play in a particular way. The Bannor are supposed to be valiant crusaders, so they get (IIRC) less war weariness so they can crusade as much as they want. Other civilizations that are pacifists get extra war weariness, but probably have some other bonus, like a strong hero or interesting unique buildings.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Well, all of this is part of the fine and difficult balance between civilizations. Kael and the team wanted every civ to be fairly different, with various strengths and weaknesses. Rather then using the vanilla civ way of balancing (everyone is rather similar, with just traits to balance and one UU), he wanted civs to be very different from each other. So it's like playing a different game each time you choose a different civ. However the balance is then harder to find (for the team, they are tweaking it every so often), and harder to see (for us). Some civs will have strong palace bonuses, others will have powerful unique units, one will have heroes, another one vampires, one will have a strong production, another a very good economy.

As for mana, the manas having bonuses are probably the ones with less powerfull spells, so it's another way to balance things.

Creation mana as a way to restore the land after blight might be interesting, but it would be yet another bonus for humans vs AI.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Or if creation mana was a way to enable terraforming?
Creation I for tier 1 terraforming like spring, Creation II for tier 2 terraforming like bloom and Creation III for tier 3 'forming like vitalize?

 

[icantcmyeye]

and also the mana types feed into the rich storyline that comes before the game.

That picture is wrong. Each civ is represented by only one mana.
Heres a list i made up for a previous project (compiled from the info on the main ffh2 page)

Bannor- Junil (Law)
Malakim- Lugus (Light, Sun)
Elohim- Sirona (Wisdom, Spirit)
Luchuirp- Nantosuelta (Enchantment)
Kuriotates- Amathaon (Creation, yet to be implemented)
Ljosalfar- Cernunnos (Nature)
Khazad- Kilmorph (Earth)
Sidar- Arawn (Death)
Lanun- Danalin (Water)
Grigori- Agnostic but used to be Dagda (Force, yet to be implemented)
Hippus- Tali (Air)
Amurites- Oghma (Metamagic, accesable by worldbuilder, but not implemented)
Doviello- Camulos (Chaos)
Balseraphs- Mammon (Mind)
Clan of Embers- Bhall (Fire)
Svartalfar- Esus (Shadow, arriving in shadow)
Calabim- Aeron (Body)
Sheiam- Ceridwen (Dimensional)
Illians- Mulcarn, kinda (Ice, Winter, arriving in ice)
Infernal- Agares (Entropy)

 

[zxcvbnm]

Why is Metamagic accessable as it has no use?