Spells related question.

[BenjaminEmbarec]

This might be a silly question, but... Is there a way to create spells that raise or lower terrain? Like create mountains a few spaces away from the caster, I guess using an invissible "Casting" summon that can move on any terrain. Why would we want that? The ability to create a wall of Mountains around the Jotnar or Runes civilizations, or to create a mountain pass that wasn't there.... And to "Recover" land lost to the sea... Or to cause an opponent to lose land to the sea. [There would have to be a way to make it so that tiles with a city are immune... OR maybe there is only a 10% chance of success if there's a city tile AND no units there?]

Personally, I'm for more arcane terraforming. ;3 Maybe give it to Archmages and RoK high priests? I'm also curious about a way to improve forts out of your land... Say having it cost a good deal of money, having increasingly higher casting times, but the tile doesn't have to be worked? It just seems silly to me to create an entire city just to improve the deffenses of a narrow mountain pass... But even sillier to not deffend taht pass to the fullest. Perhaps let the ocean version be OO exclussive [priest wise,] the mountain/hill version to be RoK exclussive [also for priests] and let anyone who can get an Archmage equivalent have a version that has "Expensive spell components" so that they have to pay money for each use?

 

[Thunder_Gr]

If you take a look at the Khazad worldspell, you should be able to figuer out how to turn this into an arcane spell, and how it can be done backwords.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Yeaaaah me and modding? Not a good mix. I tried to do that self-repair for the Jotnar before dling the new fix and somehow wound up with level twenty? Requiring three exp for the Jotnar. STILL don't know how since I just copy-pasted. 0.o I guess I'm just really putting the idea out there, surely I'm not the only one who thinks that would be cool.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I plan to do a rework for the spells in the game. Especially some level I and Level III spells, but I do not think it will be sometime soon. A spell like that is in my list of intended spells.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Nice! I'll just watch, wait, and hope then. Especially with the new Jotun... It might be required soon. I got lucky and found a nice little "Valley" in the mountiains, and although I couldn't build ALOT of cities in there... My capital was allways safe from barbarians and the like. And that got me thinking that there needed a way in.. Or a way to create them. It's a GIANT race for pete's sake, so of course any walls they made would be MASSIVE.... And since their magic is strong enough in some cases to cause Typhoons, massive blizzards, earthquake [mentioning other races/dieties here], I don't see why creating and lowering land should escape them. ;3

 

[Quetz]

sureshots old modmod had spells that raise/lowered terrain in it, and tsunami sunk cities into the ocean after enough casts.. The thing is the AI is totally not equipped to handle it at all, so..

 

[Thunder_Gr]

The AI is totally unequiped to use magic, in any case. Having a few spells to use for the player enjoyment or in multiplayer is a good thing IMO. Now, if you tell me that the AI is ever going to use scorch, blaze or vitalize effectively...This would be a proof that it will be able to use a terraforming level III spell effectivelly as well. The ability to turn hills to flat terrain is not really any different than the ability to turn a grassland into plains. If you can have the AI correctly evaluate the latter, you can also have it correctly evaluate the former. Peaks creation is quite more difficult to evaluate, but the AI should never be allowed to create peaks IMO.

 

[WarKirby]

The ability to create or remove peaks, is no different than the ability to put out fire with spring.
Both make impassable terrain passable. Or vice versa, making fires with blaze.

I really wish we could see some terraforming spells. Earth III - Move Mountains
A 5 turn casting time. Would create a peak in the targeted tile, or if there's already a peak, would flatten one into a hill

 

[Iceciro]

The ability to create peaks is VASTLY different because the Jotnar can surround themselves in two tiles of peaks and never, ever be able to be attacked.

 

[WarKirby]

The ability to create peaks is VASTLY different because the Jotnar can surround themselves in two tiles of peaks and never, ever be able to be attacked.

Could you make a picture demonstrating what you mean? I can't envision it.

There's always airships, at least.
And dragons.

 

[Iceciro]

Which not everyone has.

I mean like... Let's use the Erebus continent, and assume everything to the left is land

Jotnar Empire ^^^ Everybody else

You could say sailing, but the AI is pretty crap at that.

 

[WarKirby]

I'd call that good tactics, personally.

Assuming there were a lv3 spell to allow this, the jotnar would need to progress pretty far along the tech tree to be able to do it. So you have the first 80% of the game or so to out-tech them, and get to Strength of Will before they do. Or at least, before you intend to attack.

 

[Iceciro]

Tactics don't usually involve something that there is NO counter for. If we're going to allow this why not just give them a Hyper Super Death Move that destroys everybody else at Strength of Will. So as long as you kill them before then everything's balanced.

...wait a second...

 

[WarKirby]

something that there is NO counter for.

Earth III - Move Mountains
A 5 turn casting time. Would create a peak in the targeted tile, or if there's already a peak, would flatten one into a hill

It counters itself.
Once you get Strength of Will (or an archmage hero) you can undo their mountain wall.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I have began modding the spell spheres. I started with Fire, since it is at the top of my list for a long time now. Earth will be next.

What I have done so far:

FIRE I: Blaze. The one we all know
FIRE II: Fire wall. At present 100% defence mod. But I want to turn it to 20% damage to units attacking
FIRE III: Summon Fire Elemental. As usual

FIRE I Offensive: Firebolt. Summons a firebolt. 2 str(fire),0 mov(+1 with flying). Single target
FIRE II Offensive: Fireball. As already implemented
FIRE III Offensive: Meteor Storm. 40% damage to surrounding tiles up to 90% max. After casting this spell, the Archmage cannot cast any spells for 3 turns. This spell can only be aquired by Arcane units(So, Govannon manufactured "Archmages" from disciple units are cut off). This spell has a chance to set forests and jungles on fire.

 

[Honor]

Another counter could be an Air III spell that grants the caster's stack the ability to fly for a single turn.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

What I intend to do for Earth is:

Normal Line:
Stoneskin will be applied to the whole stack with 30% chance to wear off each turn.
Earth III: Raise Land. Transformes flat land to hill or hill to Peak. 5 Turn Casting Time. The caster will be unable to cast any spells for the next 5 turns after the cast(a total of 10 turns of no cast). The spell will be available only to Arcane units.

Offensive Line:
Earth I: Stone barage. Attack surrounding tiles with a stone barage. 5% damage to a maximum of 10%
Earth II: Summon Earth Elemental. An Earth Elemental with 6/8 str. Earth Mana affinity.
Earth III: Earthquake. Range 2. Damages all units within range 35% up to a max of 75%. The Caster will be unable to cast anything for 3 turns. This spell will only be available to Arcane units. There will be a chance to destroy improvements in range.

 

[Sephi]

Very interesting spell ideas Thunder.

 

[WarKirby]

The cooldowns on those spells are abit long, I'd say.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

The cooldowns on those spells are abit long, I'd say.

The reason for the spell system suffering in FFH and FF is that the most powerful spells have been removed due to being overpowered. And this is a real problem.
3 Turns for offensive destructive spells which damage every unit around them up to a severe damage and by a great amount is what I could think to be just fine.
When I upload the modded system, it will become more clear if the cool down is too much or too little.
As for the terraforming, the ability to create peaks is *very* game-breaking. Having 4 Archmages, you could create 4 peaks every 5 turns. I feel this should be discouraged.
Again, only testing will say if it is too much. Not to mention that, If you go with Lichdom, you could have 8 Archmages doing the job, which could be even more gamebreaking.
Also, I am sure you have noticed that mages and adepts are now going to be much more useful. The other spheres will gain an offensive line as well, and some useless spells of the normal line will be enhanced or replaced.
So, those very powerful level 3 spells should be kept from being abused.