Rituals based off of mana types

[Valkrionn]

Global warming
Requires sun mana

(The oposite of genesis, useful for Malakim) All your tiles that can be scorched, are scorched.

With the new scorch code, that would actually scorch EVERYTHING. Of course, that seems to be what you're going for here, but it would make it useful for far more than the Malakim.... Ever stuck settling Tundra? Pop a 'Global WarmingSecond Sun' ritual and boom, it's all plains. I agree with Quetz, Second Sun sounds better.

Ice -> Tundra -> Plains -> Desert
Marsh -> Grass -> Plains -> Desert

 

[solistus]

Some simple ones:

Restore the Peace
req. law mana
End all city revolts in your territory (or chance for each scaling with power and/or amount of Law?)
comments: seems obvious to me that there should be a Law ritual similar to this.


(needs name)
req. chaos mana
All units under your control lose the 'Mutant' trait (they keep whatever random traits they got when mutating originally but can now be mutated again!).
comments: makes Mutate even cooler. Everybody loves forming super units and this is a way to allow that without being too OP.

Nature's Bloom
req. nature mana
All non-forested tiles in your culture have a chance to sprout New Forests. All New Forests have a chance to become Forests. All Forests have a (small) chance to become Ancient Forests. Chance for each varies based on Power.
comments: great for Elves with too much non-forested land or to recover from their Worldspell quicker. Also a way for non-FoL to get a couple Ancient Forests if they're lucky (although non-Elves don't have as much use for AFs and Elves should be FoL anyway so it's not that powerful).

Telekenetic Push
req. force mana
Each hostile unit in your culture has a chance to be evicted outside your borders (just as it would be if you declared peace).
comments: good invasion protection, the chance should be relatively low and influenced more by Resistance than by Power to make it pretty tough to expel a large chunk of an invading stack.


It might also be kinda cool to have a set of really 'big' rituals, each requiring 4-5 of one mana type. Do you want access to a variety of spells and rituals, or would you prefer to focus your nation's resources on gaining the capacity for one BIG ritual?

e.g.

Dark Ritual
req. 4 Death mana
Each unit you kill this turn has a chance to be converted to a permanent Spectre unit under your control.
comments: obviously, having 4+ death mana makes Spectres pretty scary, so the chance should be fairly low, modified by Power.

Meteor Strike
req. 4 Fire mana
Target city has all defence bombarded away, high chance to destroy defensive buildings, lower chance to destroy other buildings, loss of a population or 2 and moderate damage to all defenders. The building destruction and pop loss effects can be fully resisted; even at full resist the city defences will take a beating and troops will suffer light damage. A fully unresisted Meteor should be pretty devastating. Maybe start fires nearby as well?

Winter Freeze
req. 4 Ice mana
All hostile units have a high chance to become immobile for a few turns.

 

[Quetz]

More random ideas. Some only apply if there is a way to create 'persistent' rituals. -

Suggestion - change the blindness effect to -25% strength, 1 move to a limit of 1, 0 visiblity. Too many hold effects already.

Cross Breeding - Chaos/nature, creates 5-10 rather crappy cannon fodder troops. Some of them have good promotions and there is a chance to get one that is really strong, depending on luck/amount of mana possessed.

Soul Gate - Creates a building in all caster cities. Each turn there is a chance modified by death mana possessed that Shades/Spectres/w.e they are called will appear there. Only usable by certain evil civs.

Raise Cauldron - Similiar to Mokka's Cauldron. Any living units killed near the city raised as soulless (cooler name for zombies.) Substantially weaker than the originals but carry some of their promotions. Only usable by certain evil civs.

Insert a bunch of death summoning rituals here, really feel Death is lacking. Maybe cost population?
Examples - Arouse Hunger, raise ghouls with Cannibalize; Bane Archers; raise skeletal archers with that spread wither; etc.

Illwinter - Advanced Pact of the Nilhorn, creates a lot of tundra/ice terrain, enemy units within it recieve cold damage, and awakens 3? Frost Giants to serve the caster. Spawns Blizzards. Ice mana. Long cast, though not as long as Draw/Ascension. Jotnar/Doviello/Illian only.


Hurricane - Water - An enemy coastal city is blasted by a hurricane, causing 5 unhappiness and lowered the population by 1 if it is over 5.

Astral Window - I guess to implement in civ would require an extremely longrange floating eye. Allows vision of faroff lands. Metamagic.

Mind Hunt - allows a mage to pick up a promotion (one time) allowing a spell similar to Astral Window. With this spell, however, they may attack from a distance (marksman?) If the attack fails, the caster loses the ability to cast Metamagic spells. Dont really like this.

Ritual of Rebirth - Similar to the Life hero ressurection, only the hero is mummified and weaker than he was in life. Death

Crumble - Earth - reduces enemy city defense.

Flames from the Sky - Fire and entropy and chaos all required, Tower of Elements as well. - as a nuke

Transformation - Nature - allows one mage in the city to transfrom into a random higher animal and potentially monster, likely becoming stronger. There is a chance of losing spellcasting abilities and a chance of the unit turning barbarian. Once transformed, he cannot be changed back.

Gift of Higher Reason - Nature/Law - Gives the Lesser Hero promotion to a unit. (as Lucian in Doviello+)

Astral Corruption - Any use of magic for 10 turns has a strong chance of attracting a Horror (very strong planar unit) or some sort of demon to attack the caster. Higher level spells have a much greater chance. Chaos/Entropy.

The Looming Hell - Up to 5, based on AC/20, enemy units turn barbarian/Agares for 5 turns. Units in tiles with Heroes are less likely to turn. Heroes are exempt. Entropy.

Utterdark - 5+ death mana, req evil, 15-20 turn duration. Req Tower of Necromancy. All civs have their maps blanked out every turn until the ritual expires. All living/demon unit visibility reduced to 1 tile radius. All living/demon units have -25% strength and -2 movement, to a limit of 1. Barbarian undead of all types randomly spawn and attack good civs. Declares war? Bet those Vampires wish they were undead now!

Mechanical Militia - Earth/Law. Raises Mechanical Men in each to the casters cities. They are immobile but powerful defenders. More Men gained in bigger cities.

Riches from Beneath - Earth/Chaos - Chance to create a metal resource in the cities tile radius.

Arcane Nexus - Earth/Metamagic - Chance to raise an unbound mana node in the cities tile radius. Possibly earth/meta only.

Create Blizzard - self explanatory, annoying how hard it is to find these though for Illians.

Sea of Ice - Ocean Tiles in the city radius/culture become Ice until dispelled/scorched. Ice Mana.

Rain of Toads - Chaos - Causes unhealthiness and unhappiness in enemy city. Units there likely to gain Diseased.

Protection of the Sepulcher - Grants resistance to all the civs undead to Banish for x turns. Possibly better from an evil priest. Law/Death.

Healing Showers - Water - heals each unit in the city a small amount.

Infernal Prison - Entropy/Law? - Banishes some enemy units to hell. They will return in 3-10 turns, modified by level/strength, at low health. More units imprisoned with higher AC.

Poison Cloud - Creates a.. well, poison cloud. All units within are poisoned. Water.

Malevolent Star - Good random events are much less likely to occur for civs under the effect of this ritual, while harmful ones are more likely. Chaos/Air?

 

[The NeverTide]

I'm pretty new to FFH and FF but I love the way the mods have redefined and individualized the game. I have noticed though that the rituals are a bit limited and could definitely, imo, use some sprucing up for an added strategic element. The idea of a bunch of cross mana necessary rituals is awesome, but also some more specific and powerful rituals that require several of the same kind of mana.

Also, what about tech requirements? The current rituals have certain tech requirements before they can be used, so maybe everyone should start including some suggested level of availability for them? I know if someone were to include any of these it would make it a lot easier. Oh, and how about moving resurrection (as in hero resurrection) to a life based ritual and putting something more interesting in the top tier of life magic? Right now, honestly, life is one of my least favorite spell spheres because of it's [apparent] limited application.

Anyway, some ideas:

Sucellus' Blessing
Requires 2 life mana, available at divine essence, 1200 (?), can be used only twice(?)
Effects: Resurrects civilization's fallen hero with 25% of its original experience. In the event of several heroes (Kuriotates) the more powerful is raised.
-Not really sure if this is over or underpowered. I figure this will free up your archmages for a more potent spell. Its moved farther back then SoW and requires an extra life mana in exchange for 25% of their original exp. Not even sure if this is possible, or if 25 is the right number if it is possible. Maybe more since its so late?

Dagda's Intervention (I like ironic names)
Requires 1 law mana and 1 force mana, available at warfare(?), ?
Effects: Forces a peace treaty between you and all hostile forces for 10 turns + an extra 2 turns per extra law/force(?) mana. Only one use per war. Does not evict units from inside cultural borders.
-Useful for surviving if multiple civs gang up on you. Like a heavily diluted version of sanctuary. What'd you think about the restrictions and extra turns?

Embarr's Musings
Requires 2 mind mana, available at philosophy, 400 , repeatable every 50 turns
Effects: Temporarily creates 1 extra sage specialist in each of your cities per 2 mind mana up to a maximum of 2 per city. Sages expire after x amount of turns, where x is 2 turns per 1 mind mana. Ritual created sages do not generate GPP. (is that even possible?)
-This is just an idea to toss around. Creating temporary free specialists? I think it could definitely have its uses. I'm not sure about the GPP block, just seems like that might cause a runaway great sage production. But, maybe that could be its purpose. Capped it's sage creation at 4 mind mana, but the 2 turns per 1 mana makes sure that having 3 won't go unrewarded and having more than 4, while excessive, will help too. Figure if you have that much mind mana, you get to decide the duration.

Tidings of Arawn
Requires 4 death mana and tower of necromancy(?), available at strength of will, 1500 , repeatable every 200(??) turns
Effects: Duration of 10 turns when cast. Any friendly unit killed during this period has a 10% chance of automatically killing it's own killer. Heroes and units above level 5 are immune to this effect.
-Obviously this ritual would need some massive testing and balancing, but I really like the idea of instant death spells using death mana, especially with such a strategic element of timing. Maybe tone down the repetition penalty or make it castable only once.
If you don't like that one, then what about this?
Alternate effects: Duration of 5 turns when cast. All friendly units killed during this time have a 25% chance to become wraiths (the ones with death mana affinity?) under your control for the duration of this ritual.
-I think this displays some excellent arcane control over death. Can definitely turn into a headache for your opponent at war, but it's only temporary help. Maybe to simulate the fact that Arawn's attention can only be drawn to creation for so long before he is invariably pulled back to his own realm's workings.

Demonic Purge
Requires good alignment, available at righteousness, 700 , repeatable every 30 turns
Effects: Banishes all demons within your cultural borders outside and forces them to remain outside for 5 turns, + 1 turn for every law, life, or creation mana you control.
-An example of a ritual that gets help from mana and requires alignment. I could see it's use late game when AC starts to ramp up. Not sure if this should extend to the horsemen or avatar but its an idea. High repeat rate and potential long duration, but 700 spent on this is not going to anything else.

Spacial Peregrination
Requires 3 dimensional mana, available at sorcery, 850 , repeat rate?
Effects: Gives all units the 'Open Rift' spell, which may only be cast by one unit. Once cast gives all units the 'Determine Destination' spell that may also only be cast by one unit. When cast, a spacial portal that connects the two points will remain open for 5 turns before closing, allowing instantaneous travel to and from these points. Units passing through the rift have a 5% chance of be lost in the darkness between worlds during their travel. Only one instance of Spacial Peregrination may be prepared at a time, repeat penalty begins from the time the portal closes.
-I really liked the above posted stygian paths ritual and thought it was a great idea, but I don't think it should be a death mana ritual. Rituals offer a way of "catching up" the spell spheres that don't see a lot of use and gives you a reason to consider them. The loss rate was a great idea too, little bit of a risk

Anyway, just some ideas. If anyone likes them, I'd be happy to post some more, definitely have them. Also.. anyone know why Rites of Oghma is called that? Wouldn't that be more of Ceridwen's realm? Maybe Rites of Ceridwen, Ceridwen's Gifts, etc. Maybe Agares too, given his infinite wells of power. I mean, where do mana nodes actually come from?

Wow this is a long post. Peace!

Edit:

Dark Ritual
req. 4 Death mana
Each unit you kill this turn has a chance to be converted to a permanent Spectre unit under your control.
comments: obviously, having 4+ death mana makes Spectres pretty scary, so the chance should be fairly low, modified by Power.

Just realized that the tidings of Arawn ritual secondary effect was pretty much the equivalent to this. Whoops, didn't mean to steal your idea! Good idea though.

 

[deadliver]

Will rituals requiring multiple mana types be considered? They should!