RifE Blogpost: Magic Revisited

[Tsathoggua]

Not likely to happen, honestly. There are enough stats to balance without factoring in one completely beyond the player's control.

Exactly how is the age of a unit completely beyond the player's control?

What I'm picturing is a situation where, instead of having to choose Combat 1 over a new spell, instead building mages earlier than everyone else would give the advantage of a slight buff to summon/spell damage along the same lines. I never really liked seeing these promotions on my magic users, to be honest. Mobility I for example is a critical promotion to give mages early on, but requires horseback riding. This idea would just make the necessity of promotions like that be satisfied through a more sensible mechanic.

Certainly, the time when mages are built and the ultimate moment when they die is absolutely up to the player. How could it be otherwise? This also fits your intention of penalizing civs that enter the magic game late, and in terms of balance that is really the only thing that would merit tweaking.

Of course if you're throwing out standard promotions entirely for mages, and adjusting their spell repertoire to compensate, then my argument is moot.

 

[Beardy Dan]

How will world spells be affected by this change?

Will Hide in the Mists require an upkeep for example?

 

[EugeneStyles]

What I'd like to see is the spells known by a caster separated out from standard level-up promotions. Say, on level up, you choose a promotion normally, and then after you choose the promotion, a box like the "choose tech" box pops up and allows you to choose a spell. Spells can be given every level, every other level, etc... Or they can be based on certain other promotions (choosing Combat 1 might allow a spell choice, but Mobility might not; or choosing "Alteration Specialist" might allow 2 spell choices, but only from the Alteration school), or a combination of the two (e.g. free spell at lvl 1, 5, 10; otherwise you get spells if you choose to Specialize or choose an "Extra Spell" promotion or something like that).

The actual implementation could be tweaked, but it would rely on whether or not it's actually possible to choose spells in this way (maybe it's impossible or would cause OOS errors?). Alternately, it could be accomplished by automatically given promotions which allow you to take Spells for "Free".

I recognize this might end up being too complicated or not in line with how you'd like it to work, but it would be nice to be able to pick standard promotions *and* spells, without having to sacrifice too much (there should obviously be some tradeoffs involved, but I'm not likely to ever choose Courage if it slows me down from something like Meteor + Combat 5 + Mobility). The tradeoffs could be worked in by having an "Extra Spell" promotion and/or number of spells known increased by promos other than Combat/Mobility.

If I haven't mentioned it before, though... I do like where you're going with the magic system. Sustain costs for summons should end up being pretty awesome.

 

[Valkrionn]

Exactly how is the age of a unit completely beyond the player's control?

What I'm picturing is a situation where, instead of having to choose Combat 1 over a new spell, instead building mages earlier than everyone else would give the advantage of a slight buff to summon/spell damage along the same lines. I never really liked seeing these promotions on my magic users, to be honest. Mobility I for example is a critical promotion to give mages early on, but requires horseback riding. This idea would just make the necessity of promotions like that be satisfied through a more sensible mechanic.

Certainly, the time when mages are built and the ultimate moment when they die is absolutely up to the player. How could it be otherwise? This also fits your intention of penalizing civs that enter the magic game late, and in terms of balance that is really the only thing that would merit tweaking.

Of course if you're throwing out standard promotions entirely for mages, and adjusting their spell repertoire to compensate, then my argument is moot.

In short: Making mages better as they age encourages reloading when they die, and penalizes new units. Age already factors in (somewhat) via xp and level; I see absolutely no reason to further tie a mage's ability to age, as the player cannot do anything to change age other than advance to the next turn.

To state it in another way: Yes, when a mage is built is up to the player. But age already enhances mages, via XP. I will not add a mechanic that further penalizes new units.

How will world spells be affected by this change?

Will Hide in the Mists require an upkeep for example?

They'll remain pretty much as they are. They are worldspells, meant to be special... No mana costs.

 

[Cyrusfan]

The lack of specificity in the limit on mana accumulation really worries me. I'd really like to at least feel like I'm doing something to improve such a thing, rather than feeling one more feature is like playing the game with another hand tied behind my back.

One fixed value for every civ under every circumstance would be dreadful, the whole point of FfH and its children is the lack of sameness among civs. One civ dependent value would at least preserve some flavor, though if its not to be totally in the way in the late game, it has to be meaningless when adepts first become available. Making the limit tech dependent deals with the latter issue, but probably still needs to be affected by civ (Amurites and Sheaim really ought to be able to build better mana reserves, than, say, Khazad).

Setting a limit in proportion to mana income would alleviate my concerns, as I can then grab territory and build appropriately if I'm a civ that cares about it. Maybe some buildings could exist for the purpose of increasing mana storage.

In terms of "letting me do something about it" something like the old MoM system for increasing the player's ability to spend mana might work. Or if you don't want to add another slider, maybe something passive like spending all excess mana towards improving the mana storage limit might work.

 

[Cyrusfan]

I should add to that, I think there probably needs to be some non-typed improvement for mana nodes that's beneficial to those that care about them rather than folks who build a town on top of them.

 

[Valkrionn]

What I'd like to see is the spells known by a caster separated out from standard level-up promotions. Say, on level up, you choose a promotion normally, and then after you choose the promotion, a box like the "choose tech" box pops up and allows you to choose a spell. Spells can be given every level, every other level, etc... Or they can be based on certain other promotions (choosing Combat 1 might allow a spell choice, but Mobility might not; or choosing "Alteration Specialist" might allow 2 spell choices, but only from the Alteration school), or a combination of the two (e.g. free spell at lvl 1, 5, 10; otherwise you get spells if you choose to Specialize or choose an "Extra Spell" promotion or something like that).

The actual implementation could be tweaked, but it would rely on whether or not it's actually possible to choose spells in this way (maybe it's impossible or would cause OOS errors?). Alternately, it could be accomplished by automatically given promotions which allow you to take Spells for "Free".

I recognize this might end up being too complicated or not in line with how you'd like it to work, but it would be nice to be able to pick standard promotions *and* spells, without having to sacrifice too much (there should obviously be some tradeoffs involved, but I'm not likely to ever choose Courage if it slows me down from something like Meteor + Combat 5 + Mobility). The tradeoffs could be worked in by having an "Extra Spell" promotion and/or number of spells known increased by promos other than Combat/Mobility.

If I haven't mentioned it before, though... I do like where you're going with the magic system. Sustain costs for summons should end up being pretty awesome.

Not terribly likely, though we have discussed it.

The lack of specificity in the limit on mana accumulation really worries me. I'd really like to at least feel like I'm doing something to improve such a thing, rather than feeling one more feature is like playing the game with another hand tied behind my back.

One fixed value for every civ under every circumstance would be dreadful, the whole point of FfH and its children is the lack of sameness among civs. One civ dependent value would at least preserve some flavor, though if its not to be totally in the way in the late game, it has to be meaningless when adepts first become available. Making the limit tech dependent deals with the latter issue, but probably still needs to be affected by civ (Amurites and Sheaim really ought to be able to build better mana reserves, than, say, Khazad).

Setting a limit in proportion to mana income would alleviate my concerns, as I can then grab territory and build appropriately if I'm a civ that cares about it. Maybe some buildings could exist for the purpose of increasing mana storage.

In terms of "letting me do something about it" something like the old MoM system for increasing the player's ability to spend mana might work. Or if you don't want to add another slider, maybe something passive like spending all excess mana towards improving the mana storage limit might work.

The limit will be dependent on the base limit (same for everyone), traits (arcane, for example, boosts it), buildings, techs, civics.

I should add to that, I think there probably needs to be some non-typed improvement for mana nodes that's beneficial to those that care about them rather than folks who build a town on top of them.

That's already been discussed earlier in the post (and in the blog itself). Not only will untyped Mana be harvestable, it will generate more mana than the typed ones. Gives you a meaningful reason to not type it.

 

[Nekron]

This sounds awesome an army of pit beasts muhahah *ahem* I do have a few issues though like the Tower of the Elements that summons a permanent elemental will that unit have a mana upkeep? I also assume summoned creatures/entities will have a dismiss button of some sort? Other than that woo!^^

 

[Cyrusfan]

Are you equating untyped with unimproved? I meant that if there was significantly more mana to be gained from a raw node, one shouldn't get that superior. amount if you build a cottage or a mill on top of it. That could be done by giving all the improvements a mana penalty, but I'd rather see it done by building *something* on it maybe like a "mana collector".

 

[Valkrionn]

Are you equating untyped with unimproved? I meant that if there was significantly more mana to be gained from a raw node, one shouldn't get that superior. amount if you build a cottage or a mill on top of it. That could be done by giving all the improvements a mana penalty, but I'd rather see it done by building *something* on it maybe like a "mana collector".

....No, I am not. When did I ever state that you get mana from simply having mana on a plot? It must be harvested, and available on the city screen. I thought that much was obvious.

Of course there will be an improvement for the raw mana.

 

[Cyrusfan]

The only "untyped" mana nodes we have now are raw, and we've never had untyped mana available on the city screen. You didn't state anything conclusive, you've only said that you wanted to provide an incentive not to type mana nodes and the only other option we've ever had was to not build on the tile. So no, it was not obvious, hence the guessing.

 

[Valkrionn]

The only "untyped" mana nodes we have now are raw, and we've never had untyped mana available on the city screen. You didn't state anything conclusive, you've only said that you wanted to provide an incentive not to type mana nodes and the only other option we've ever had was to not build on the tile. So no, it was not obvious, hence the guessing.

It never once occurred to me, or any of the rest of the team, that in giving a resource a use it would NOT gain an improvement to harvest it. Resources must be harvested to have any effect. It's the way it's always been.

It is literally such a basic mechanic that I did not believe it had to specified.

 

[Cyrusfan]

It never once occurred to me, or any of the rest of the team, that in giving a resource a use it would NOT gain an improvement to harvest it. Resources must be harvested to have any effect. It's the way it's always been.

It is literally such a basic mechanic that I did not believe it had to specified.

Well insularity will do that. Turning the FfH magic system on its head in favor of a points-based system is a pretty major change and reasonably invalidates much of our previous experience. The experience that would seem to most accurately apply goes back to Master of Magic, in which nodes gave you some mana once you beat their guardians and more once you 'improved' them.

Further, it doesn't make any sense to think of mana, as you've described it, as a resource. It doesn't make people happy or healthy, nor does it appear to serve as a prerequisite for construction. It's points that you accumulate. It's like claiming beakers are a resource.

Maybe better terminology would help. You mention in the blogpost that it's a stat like Gold, which of course has litle to do with the Gold resource. Maybe refer to the stat as mana points (MP, like every RPG since forever) as opposed to saying "I have 3 fire mana" which would be talking about the resource.

 

[tesb]

What I'd like to see is the spells known by a caster separated out from standard level-up promotions. Say, on level up, you choose a promotion normally, and then after you choose the promotion, a box like the "choose tech" box pops up and allows you to choose a spell. Spells can be given every level, every other level, etc... Or they can be based on certain other promotions (choosing Combat 1 might allow a spell choice, but Mobility might not; or choosing "Alteration Specialist" might allow 2 spell choices, but only from the Alteration school), or a combination of the two (e.g. free spell at lvl 1, 5, 10; otherwise you get spells if you choose to Specialize or choose an "Extra Spell" promotion or something like that).

The actual implementation could be tweaked, but it would rely on whether or not it's actually possible to choose spells in this way (maybe it's impossible or would cause OOS errors?). Alternately, it could be accomplished by automatically given promotions which allow you to take Spells for "Free".

I recognize this might end up being too complicated or not in line with how you'd like it to work, but it would be nice to be able to pick standard promotions *and* spells, without having to sacrifice too much (there should obviously be some tradeoffs involved, but I'm not likely to ever choose Courage if it slows me down from something like Meteor + Combat 5 + Mobility). The tradeoffs could be worked in by having an "Extra Spell" promotion and/or number of spells known increased by promos other than Combat/Mobility.

If I haven't mentioned it before, though... I do like where you're going with the magic system. Sustain costs for summons should end up being pretty awesome.

just to let you know, the new magic system in wildmana has a separate spell research. so you automatically acquire new spells once you have them researched.
all mages will have to choose between one spellschool (dark magic, light magic or elemtalism) and gain the researched spells in that category. (at least that is how the beta works and i really like this system much more then with promotions)

 

[Valkrionn]

just to let you know, the new magic system in wildmana has a separate spell research. so you automatically acquire new spells once you have them researched.
all mages will have to choose between one spellschool (dark magic, light magic or elemtalism) and gain the researched spells in that category. (at least that is how the beta works and i really like this system much more then with promotions)

We considered something of that nature. Ultimately though, I dislike it. If the spells are free, you remove any need for a choice between a promotion that makes your existing spells stronger, or getting that shiny new spell. I like that choice. I also like that promoting to the spells encourages specializing your mages; Each one can easily be very different.

One idea from Sephi's version that we ARE looking at (whether to merge, or to simply use the idea and code ourselves) would be the Aura mechanic. Though it won't just be for units.

 

[tesb]

yeah i will make some items in the future which grant auras

 

[Valkrionn]

Items granting auras still end up with the unit having it. That's not what I meant at all.

Improvements. Allows you to have some highly specialized effects from certain improvements.

 

[Meldon]

This sounds pretty awesome; after it comes out my first few games will probably be Amurite ;D

The only concern I do have is that reworking an entire concept to be on a per-turn basis sounds like it would slow down the game.

 

[Valkrionn]

This sounds pretty awesome; after it comes out my first few games will probably be Amurite ;D

The only concern I do have is that reworking an entire concept to be on a per-turn basis sounds like it would slow down the game.

What concept has become perturn?

 

[esvath]

Questions on mana (the stat) accumulation :

1. If I have three fire mana (resources), then how many mana (stat) that I collect per turn and what kind of type (or if there is a mana-type at all)?
2. Will it differ with having one fire mana, one air mana and one earth (all three are elemental mana)?
3. Will it differ with having one spirit, one fire and one body mana (all three from different school)?