RifE Blogpost: Magic Revisited

[Valkrionn]

OK, then I misunderstood. And indeed, having a single use for stacking is basically enough to make that part of the system work, if well balanced.

Pretty much how I see it as well. If there's a cost to spells, and stacking mana reduces that cost.... That's far better than a free spell, IMO.

The mana system could have some interesting side-effects if combined with some of the existing variables in the game. D'Tesh could sacrifice slaves for extra mana, Khazad could build a magical forge to convert excess mana to hammers, the Amurites could have a process availabel to them to convert hammers to mana, the Sheaim could pray to demons for extra power - essentially sacrificing culture for mana, the Elohim could earn bonus mana if their cities are healthy and happy, but lose mana if thier cities are unhealthy and unhappy.

Possible... Though the Khazad will have some use for mana.

So does this mean that a Tower of Mastery victory will become a bit harder as you'll now want some untapped mana to power your spells?
Also will there be any benefits to having multiples of the same manner, for example boosts to spell effects, cheaper mana costs, etc ?

Eh, not too much so. Up to you if you want Mana or if you want to build the Tower (still get mana, just not as much).

Already said we can have spell discounts.

Should be pretty easy to do.... Just an array of Resource + Discount amount, on spells.

 

[Valkrionn]

If you did add another tile yield, would it not be possible to assure that tile could never have more than three types of yield at once? For example making commerce and mana exclusive?

Ex) If a tile has "x" commerce and "y" mana yield, have the tile give "x+y" mana and 0 commerce.

A more complicated solution (yet probably still possible) would be an assessment of all the possible situations involving all four yields on one tile and finding an individual solution for each. I really don't think there would be many situations where all four yields would happen at once. These are the only ones that come to mind.

- riverside tiles with both food and production (like grasslandhill, plain, or grasslandforest) that also have a mana node or unique feature. This could be solved by adding a check to the spawning of mana nodes and unique features in map creation/rights of Oghma that prevents them from spawning on tiles with commerce.

- a tile with a unique feature that spawns on top of a commerce resource (mana nodes are resources and cannot spawn on other resources). Again in map creation/Rights of Oghma, this should be a quick check.

- a tile with haunted lands. Haunted lands on mana nodes/mana features should either give additional mana instead of commerce or be prevented from spreading to mana nodes.

- an ocean/coast tile with a reef or after heron's thrown with a mana node (I'm assuming water tiles will eventually get mana nodes with the advent of aquatic civs). Again the chances of this happening should be fairly slim, but a simple check should solve this problem too.

- a commerce improvement on a mana node (with food and production) restrict the types of improvements that can be built on mana nodes to the mana collecting improvements.

In the end it mostly boils down to a check that on land mana nodes and mana granting unique features are not added to tiles with commerce and on water that mana nodes (and unique features?) aren't placed on tiles with hammers. Along with a few other changes

Another possibly simple solution could also be giving water based mana nodes -"x" hammers and land based mana nodes -"y" commerce assuming that a yield can't be less than 0. Unique features that grant mana could also have similar modifiers. Essentially "x" and "y" just have to be high enough that the corresponding yields can never be more than 0.

Basically what I am trying to say is that the situations where all four yields are present would be rare, and that preventing (what IMHO is) a convenient and clear method of explaining the source of mana because of graphical issues is a bit hasty.

Frankly, I have no idea. However, I also have no intention of having Mana as a Yield; Far more akin to a commerce. It will be displayed sufficiently.

 

[Opera]

Four yields is just plain complicated to display. I tried in another mod, no luck.

But as Valkrionn said, Mana will be a Commerce iirc.

 

[Tsathoggua]

On "rushing" rituals with the new mana currency: Maybe not? I mean, it seems nice on the surface of it but man, I'd hate to imagine something going awry with Stir from Slumber because a few paragraphs of the recitation were glossed over.

 

[Forral]

They are already in game. Those are the names of the techs which allow the mana nodes to be built. I have no interest in regrouping spell spheres, destroying part of FfH's lore in the process.

Figured that out... Unfortunately too late late to edit my post before revealing my retardism publically on the forums.
<- Forral stoopid.

 

[Calavente]

The spheres are already in groups of 4 groups of 5 + metamagic.

Alteration - Body, Creation, Enchantment, Force, Nature
Divination - Law, Life, Mind, Spirit, Sun
Elementalism - Air, Earth, Fire, Ice, Water
Necromancy - Chaos, Death, Dimensional, Entropy, Shadow

So basically, you switched Dimensional (very, very Evil in FfH; Ceridwen. More so than Death), Ice (Opposite of Fire, not so much evil as resisting change; Really, Mulcarn's actions were completely in keeping with his sphere), and Nature (dunno, was always there )

Arg.. I knew I had to check RifE before answering
I made that list with the pdf s : lorebook and manual.. + memories of my current WM game.
(in WM there are no dimensional mana, thus I didn't knew it was necromancy)
As for switching nature with ice, ice with dim and dim with nature... I maintain my proposition; I learnt about Caridwen but didn't know about the evil effect of dimensionnal mana...ohoh... maybe you mean due to the sheaim portals that summons demons ?
in the end, Aeron is really evil (last level of hell) but it's mana is body : in the alteration tech.
Mamon is angel of greed (evil/destructor) but it's mana is mind : in divination line.

on the topic,

If I understood correctly, with stacking manas :

I think the proposed mechanism is good as it allows you to decide wether it is better to have a big reduction on a few spells, or few reduction on a lot of spells (1 mana node of many spheres) or no reduction at all but a lot of mana income (untransformed mana).

I suppose that rituals and city/spells get no reduction ?

An exemple to see if I understood correctly
my mages know : fireball or haste:
Fireball costs 4mana to launch ; haste costs 2mana
I have 4 nodes (not counting the palace nodes to make it simple) : many options :

-4fire nodes gives 2 mana each + 15%reduction to fire spell 8 mana + 60% reduction(number are studpid but just an exemple) + can learn new fire spells
firball costs 1,6 mana (60%reduction) : can launch 5 firballs. but only 4 times haste

-2water (3mana each) 2body (3mana): 6mana + 6 mana = 12
no reduction to fire spells: launch 3 fireballs,
+30%reduction to body spells (hast costs 1.2): can launch 10 haste spells
can learn new water/body spells.

-4 untransformed mana : 4 mana each : 16 mana : no reduction whatsoever, cannot learn new spells from any school
can launch 4 fireballs or hast 8 stacks.

 

[A Moon]

Sorry if this has already been suggested, but what about buildings that could channel mana? Our cities cast worldspells now, why not give them a few other toys? I think it would also let civs like the Amurites or some of the other magically inclined have some possible new UBs too.

 

[lemonjelly]

Sorry if this has already been suggested, but what about buildings that could channel mana? Our cities worldspells now, why not give them a few other toys? I think it would also give civs like the Amurites or some of the other magically inclined some possible UBs too.

Nothing to stop you doing a module for that, and yeah, more city spells are being added, the Sidar and worldspells are more of a proof of concept at the moment, more will come in 1.4, when magic is redone

 

[A Moon]

Nothing to stop you doing a module for that

Apart from my own stupidity, short attention span, and

 

[lemonjelly]

Apart from my own stupidity, short attention span, and

Hehe, just open up Civ4SpellInfos.xml and see whether you understand it
XML is pretty easy to understand

 

[Valkrionn]

Sorry if this has already been suggested, but what about buildings that could channel mana? Our cities cast worldspells now, why not give them a few other toys? I think it would also let civs like the Amurites or some of the other magically inclined have some possible new UBs too.

What exactly do you mean 'channel mana'? As in, grant mana to the civ? If so, yes, they'll be in. For example, the Catacomb Libralus.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Er... just as a question. Will you be able to teach the AI to use this spell system reliably?

I mean, it sounds so complicated that even I have problems wrapping my head around it.

 

[Valkrionn]

Er... just as a question. Will you be able to teach the AI to use this spell system reliably?

I mean, it sounds so complicated that even I have problems wrapping my head around it.

It's not more complicated than the existing one, honestly. Not as far as the AI is concerned. Just different.

And yes, we should be able to. Snarko has an idea on how to handle spells... Won't ever be quite as good as a human player, but it should be able to understand when it's better to cast as opposed to attack, and when to cast what spell.

 

[A Moon]

What exactly do you mean 'channel mana'? As in, grant mana to the civ? If so, yes, they'll be in. For example, the Catacomb Libralus.

Possibly, but also have a few be able to use a certain amount of mana per turn for spellcasting, like a mage.

 

[Valkrionn]

Oh. Not a building, no. A city. Buildings could enhance the city's ability to channel mana, however, just like promotions.... That is essentially what buildings are, after all.

 

[Andvare]

So, with which version is this, quite awsometastic system, released?
Or is it more like "some time in the future"?

Seems to be a whole lot closer to MoM, which is a very good thing.

 

[Valkrionn]

It is scheduled to be part of 1.4.