Spell reworking for FF

[jacomanring]

Originally Posted by WarKirby
how about removing pond entirely and putting spring back.

How about, as a better lv3 water spell, the ability to create a river. A source of fresh water, anywhere you want it. Think of how excellent that would be.

I agree totally with WarKirby! I'd put spring back as well as waterwalking (to lvl2) and give to lvl3 an ability like Create lake.

That could be used in combination with lvl3 offense water spell Tsunami!

Come on, folks! Cast your Tsunami anywhere you want, with your brand new something like "create a new one tile lake" spell!

...of course, casters should have Waterwalking or is going to drown into the lake created by himself...how ironic!

Well, so it goes...

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I think that the entire idea of the mage casting a spell, and than being cripled and unable to cast anything for 3 or more turns is HORIBLE.

I can understand that a spell would have cooldown so that it can not be cast for N turns, but a spell that renders the caster inoperable is rarely ever worth the cost. Especialy if you have to get him into position close to enemy forces or cities. It esentialy boils down to:
Get into position -> Cast spell -> Pray to god and try to slowely run away -> Get your guardsmen units masacred by AI assasin spam -> Die from AI assasin spam.
No one is going to use an arch mage for that.

 

[Honor]

Archmages are the special cherry on top. For them to be effective, you need a cake, first. I do not see any problems with archmages being blocked from casting any spells for n turns, since they will be accompanied by a host of mages anyway, if I need those fireballs.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

The main problem is if I have for example a Teraform Arch Mage (Nature 3 + Earth 3) so that I can create mountains and improve terain. (I used to use only nature 3) If it was a spell only cooldown, he could still bloom and what not while he waits for another mountain pop.
I just think it's to dangerous to criple your best spellcaster and hope he does not get killed.
It could work if the AI would stop spaming asasins or Guardsmen became easier to get.

 

[Valkrionn]

Time for a shameless selfquote....

Personally, I think spring as you have it is rather weak. Yes, it counters Fire Wall, but that depends on the enemy USING Fire Wall. I'd add some other small boost, maybe a small chance to create a lake? (Oasis clone, reduced yields)

An idea from the 'Smoke' thread... How about having spring create a 'Storm' improvement if there is no other use for it when cast? As in, no smoke or fire to be put out, and no Desert to be improved. The 'Storm' could increase movement costs to travel through, allowing you to slow down high units. Would make it perfect for a lvl 2 spell... Not one you'd want to use in ALL situations like fireballs, but one that has enough SITUATIONAL use to make it worthwhile. Of course, it would affect your own units as well, but since it would mostly be defensive, you'd still be able to use your roads.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

My original purpose, was to rework the spell system for FF using the current FF features.

Unfortunatelly, there is no way to do this. I have already added 3 new xml tags and I need to add 2 or 3 more.

This means that, in addition to the xml, python additions that will have to be maintained, a dll maintenance will be in order.

I am just one person. I can maintain the dll and the python, at most. I cannot maintain all of it. In addition, FF patches are comming in quick succession. For such an extensive modification, a new patch will come out before the port to the previous patch was made.

So, unless there are some people willing to help with this, or there is interest in this being incorporated to a larger project(at the moment only FF and Fall Flat could be candidates), I will have to pause and wait for an FF release that will stay for a while(a month or so, perhaps), before I implement it.

With so many issues with the Jotnar, I do not see this being the case for a while.

 

[WarKirby]

Can't you submit your dll additions to the team, for permanant inclusion in FF?

Even if FF doesn't use them, having extra functionality there for modmods would be a good thing.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Can't you submit your dll additions to the team, for permanant inclusion in FF?

Even if FF doesn't use them, having extra functionality there for modmods would be a good thing.

If the FF team is interested I will. If I just upload them, they will be invalidated after the next patch. So, they will become useless.

EDIT:
My additions are, so far:

<PromotionBeforeCombatApply>

Allows for a promotion to be applied on the opponent just before combat.

I also altered the code in the dll, so that if such a promotion has duration -1, will only be applied when defending, when -2, only when attacking.
At the moment any duration <0 will also result in the promotion being instantly removed(allows to do damage to the opponent just before combat)

I also altered the code checking for pomotion duration form !=0 to >0, in order to avoid problems with the new system

<iPromotionCombatStrengthMod>
<iPromotionCombatDefenceMod>

An integer that increases strength/defence against the promotion specified.

EDIT2:
Forgot to mention. Added a report to python for UnitUpgrade(onUnitUpgradedEvent) which sends the pOldUnit, pNewUnit to python, and also implememented the python event.

 

[WarKirby]

See, these sound like awesome things. I could see myself having a use for applying a promotion before combat.

Give vehem a poke and see if he's interested.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

*Pokes Vehem*

Hey, Vehem! Are you interested?

 

[WarKirby]

I imagine a PM would be more poke-like.

 

[xienwolf]

He'd just poke me in turn anyway

Almost certainly I would wind up rewriting the tags from scratch. The functional bits would be a decent "leg-up" on where to go for placing the code to save some time, but the workaround to check the negative values would have to go, and the PromotionCombat mods would get made into an array so you can have more than 1 boost on a single promotion. So much code which is limited in scope already which needs rewriting without adding more Unfortunately it would get tossed in the bin with other code to convert/implement for the next month. Coming up on finals, so no time now, but should be TONS of time after.

 

[sputnik323]

Here are some ideas I posted a while ago (others contributed too).. They were originally designed to be level 4 spells, but thought I would list them as ideas for more spells (because I agree that more attention needs to be given on spells). Of course nothing has been balanced or coded... just ideas.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=293748

 

[deadliver]

What about a death spell that turns units it kills into some sort of undead, either an undead version of itself or a skelly?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I would like to see a OO unique spell called Mist.
Requires: OO and Wather 3.
Effects:
1. Asasins atacking the tile lose the "attack weakest unit effect"
2. Disables ranged bomardements into and out of the tile.

 

[Iskar Jarak]

sounds fun, great ideas so far, one problem: casters should not get xp from casting spells, that's what passive xp gain is for. It would be extremely and unnecessarily micromanagement intensive, imagine going around every turn and having them cast some useless spell for xp, if the modmodmod is successful them spell casters will be a lot more prevalent due to increased usage and in late game there could be a score or more of them. To me passive xp gain already represents that, the constant studying and casting that isn't shown because it isn't necessary to control.

 

[Honor]

I have also thought about that, and I agree with you, at least for non-offensive spells. However, a hard-to-spam, non-micromanagement-encouraging, damage-based experience bonus for magi who have actually seen combat may be justified. My RPG-loving soul just breaks when I see my mages working their nether places off to damage enemy units in the heat of combat and not gain any experience points from it.

 

[xienwolf]

Make more spells work like Force (grants a ranged attack) and they will get XP through it without having to invent new mechanics. Or make them work by summoning a unit which does an attack and they get feedback XP.

 

[Guybrush!]

There should be a magic missles spell for Force magic. I don't really care how, I just love magic missles

 

[WarKirby]

There should be a magic missles spell for Force magic. I don't really care how, I just love magic missles

A lv1 spell that's capable of direct damage would be really nice.