Sweet! Reminds me of the magic system in Age of Wonders, wich I loved.
Have you played it Valkrion? Just curious.
I think it will be a long hard work to fine tune, but surely on paper the changes you propose are REALLY interesting...
Thx for the Tease!
I haven't played much AoW, honestly.
question :
would cross-spells be effects of previous spell cumulated (just 2birds with one stone but at a lower cost than cast both spells) or new spell with new effects ?
(I mean : firestorm = effect of fireball on citydefense + effect of maelstrom on unit life with a 30% limit )
or one may want to launch 1st a firestorm to ... reduce unit life as maelstrom but with a -50% limitThen launch a fireball to try to kill one unit + do collateral damage....etc
What would be the advantage of archmages vs mage vs adept ?
more capability ? more willpower ?
access to better spells ?
Are spells learnt for all time ? or do I need a certain amount of mana nodes to learn them or a certain amount of mana nodes to launch them?
If I change all my mana nodes to non-elemental manas nodes, And I have a elemental-specialized mage. Will I be able to cast elemental spells ? to learn new elemental spells ?
Will arcane units still gain automatic xp and free promotions ?
Cross-Spells would be completely new spells. Off-the-top-of-my-head example for Firestorm: AoE fire attack, stronger than Maelstrom, grants a 'Burned' promo to all damaged units which slows healing.
Each new level of unit will have more capacity and willpower, as well as access to better spells.... Channeling reqs stay in place.
Spells are known forever when you know them.
You will still be able to cast them, but no, no more learning them.
They will still gain automatic xp, and a free promo on creation/upgrade.
Sounds fun! I just hope this new system comes before gran turismo 5 so I can test it without any pressure
I especially like the idea when summons turns against host
Yep. Don't have the Willpower, be prepared for bad things.
one question - what about divine spells? Whould they be affected by new mechanics (which would be cool), or not (which would be cool to, becouse of diversity
) ?
No comment.
Let me first say that it is a decently designed system. You obviously put a lot of thought and effort in it. But...
*puts on devil's advocate hat*
I really fear it's just too complex for a game like Civilization. As I said it is a fine system in theory, I just fear it won't be fun to actually play with. There's a lot of things that contribute to that. The mana-pool, the two new stats, the new summoning system... It all adds up to even more "unit planning" than magic-using units already require. It's all fine and dandy on a smaller case, but just imagine going to war with a magic-based civilization. Going to war with 10 mages might take more effort than going to war with just a "normal" army of dozens of axemen, archers and catapults. And you can't really justify that with "yes, but magic will be more powerful", because then you are dangling a powerful option in front of the players eyes, and then make them pay for it by making the game more work-intensive to play. Red Alert. Very Bad.
I might be exaggerating (as I said, I'm wearing my devil's advocate hat), but I still believe the concerns I had remain valid, if maybe for different reasons. In case it is not clear, this is my chief concern: it is a very fine system when you consider using magic as support, when it is on a smaller scale. I fear that the system will fail when used on a larger scale, when you want to use magic as your main strategy, when you play a magic-focused civ/leader.
Also, good luck with balancing this. A new basic resource, entirely new spells, two new attributes for units, buildings/promotions which modify these attributes or the amount of mana you gain etc... Everytime I hear something new about this system, it seems that piece of news includes another variable which needs to be balanced against many others.
I also want you to know that I'm not criticising you just because I think another system would be better, or just because I said I had concerns and now do not want to back down or somesuch. I really think these concerns are valid, and I feel it would be unfair if I then just kept them to myself.
I'm not denying that it WILL take extensive effort to balance. That said, I do not think it will be as bad as you fear.
And concerns/criticism are always welcome.
Are you going to rewrite the Cave of Ancestors scenario to act as a tutorial in the new magic system? How does Divine magic work?
No. We aren't touching the FfH scenarios at all.
No comment.
Maybe they could go rogue (( turn barbarian )) ...
Nah. If you don't have enough mana to sustain it in this plane, then it returns to it's own.
I like the expanded magic system. it's more like mom. the elementals should be more permanently.
In the current FF and RIFE i trust more in units like beastmasters and paladins and hero's and magic is less important.
So i support making the magic system more important and detailed.
One (somewhat minor) issue is spells that are less useful. Is it going to be worthwhile to spend XP on a less useful spell even if it is balanced with a lower mana cost? Currently, that's accomplished by Adepts getting (mostly) the less useful spells at level 1, with the better spells being higher level. Plus specials like Dwarven Adepts getting Repair as a bonus spell with Earth 1. And Repair can be great in the right situation, but I don't think I would ever pick Wall (or is it Stone Wall? whatever) if it cost a promotion that could have been used on Fireball or Crush, or whatever...
It would be nice if some promotions gave 2 of the less useful spells, or if it were still possible to get the crappier spells for free (like 2 Fire mana resources = Blaze for free, if you really want Blaze... but you can never get Fireball for free, because it's too good). Or if Dwarven Adepts got Repair for free, Elven Adepts got, say, Treetop Defense, etc...
Because it seems like a shame to get rid of some of the lower-level more narrow-use spells, but it also seems like a shame for them to sit there and never be picked because they're not good enough.
Oh, and one other thing - when choosing promotions, are we going to get an overwhelming list of promos to choose from? That's one reason I kind of liked spheres and prereqs - you don't have 3 buttons per sphere showing up for you to pick from, you just have 1 button per type of mana you have, and can level it up. It almost seems like it'd be nice to have an "entry" skill, like "Fire Casting" that would give you a crappy fire spell and open up access to all the other Fire spells. But you already said you don't want spell prereqs...
Some spells will remain weak... But as I said, channeling reqs remain. Your adept will continue to just have access to T1 spells, but we can now make some of them decently strong... Just slap a higher cost on it (even enough that the standard unit takes two turns for it).
I'm not decided yet on what to do with level ups. It's something that will need to be addressed.
If nothing else, we can allow you to toggle which School promos are visible at once.
To some extent their scarcity will make them more valuable. You might not want Treetop Defence instead of your first Fireball, but when you already have ten Fireballers, that marginal stack buff starts looking better. And a good Fireballer will cast more and stronger Balls of Fire than that neophyte that is choosing between taking "Fire and Balls 101" or "Treetops and You" for an extra credit course.
Pretty much, yeah.
