Summoning

[DrPepper836]

I last got a new version of this mod about 3 or 4 months ago, and have played it a decent bit. I used to use a strategy of summoning massive units with spells to fight wars, but I recently updated my version and found the summoner unit to be missing, and most of the current spells don't summon anything. Did they do this to balance the game?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I last got a new version of this mod about 3 or 4 months ago, and have played it a decent bit. I used to use a strategy of summoning massive units with spells to fight wars, but I recently updated my version and found the summoner unit to be missing, and most of the current spells don't summon anything. Did they do this to balance the game?

Partially. The Summoning and Sorcery spheres have been merged. Some people were complaining about the old system being confusing for newbies, about the summons being boring (as most are simply combat units with no special abilities), or not liking spells that create units (fireball and meteor swarm) being considered sorcery spells. Also, the team wanted fewer slots to fill when coming up with spells for the unimplemented spheres.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

I think the only level 1 summoning sphere is Death (Raise Skeleton, permanent), level 2 has Death (Summon Spectre), and I believe Malakim get Summon Sand Lion (Sun). Most of the level 3 spells are now summons though:
Law - Host of the Einherjar (Lasts as long as it keeps winning battles, including workers)
Chaos - Pit Beast (Same as Host)
Fire - Fire elemental (Collateral damage, fire affinity?)
Water - Water elemental (Waterwalking, water affinity?)
Earth - Earth elemental (Earth affinity)
Air - Air elemental (Spawns permanent lightning elementals, air affinity)
Metamagic - Djinn (+1 affinity for every mana)
Death - Summon Wraith (fear, death affinity)
Shadow - Mistform (Hidden Nationality)
Sun - Aurealis (+2 sun affinity)
Body - Flesh Golem (permanent)
I don't remember what Entropy is, but all of the rest aren't summons.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Sand Lions are available to any Malakim arcane unit with channeling2, they don;t require any sphere.

Entropy does not have summons anymore. Summon Balor is now an AV high priest spell.

 

[A_Hamster]

I don't remember what Entropy is, but all of the rest aren't summons.

Entropy 1 = Wither
Entropy 2 = Rust
Entropy 3 = Enervation

So yes, no Summons in that sphere.

 

[Sureshot]

i really want to see more spells in general per mana type per spell level.

also, with the merge of sorcery and summoning, it might be nice to merge arcane and summoner traits (with only a double duration instead of triple), since summoning seems too powerful on its own but much too specialized to serve that power often, and arcane is rather weak (more a perk than a real trait)

 

[MaxAstro]

The problem is that takes away uniqueness from the Sheim (and Tebryn would need a new trait). I like Summoning being specifically a Sheim (and Keelyn) thing. And Arcane is NOT a weak trait; it has a very, very notable effect on how fast mages gain XP.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'll probably remove both traits in my modmod (Summoning is definitely gone, but I'm less sure about arcane). Dimensional promotions on a caster will all boost duration of the caster's summons. Only Sheaim and Infernal start with Dimensional, and it requires Arcane lore to get more nodes (Metamagic will also need this tech). ALso, Planar Gate will grant Twincast. The Arcane promotion may become an Amurite racial promotion. The leaders would get more traits to compensate.

 

[Sureshot]

you can get xp on arcane units faster with raiders i find, and raiders applies to all units and gives a free promotion and gets you more gold from pillaging and such.. tebryn would of course get some other trait like organized or charismatic

i wouldnt mind summoning and arcane just being gone if their effects went into mana (good idea), but i think they could be salvaged by combining and adding more economy benefits like faster production of things (currently its just mage guild for arcane and nothing for summoning) or a bonus happy or something on some buildings

 

[Grey Fox]

We have no archmages anymore - Our archmages have become summoners. How many pure attack spells are there now? One? Maelstrom, and that's a level 2 spell.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

We have no archmages anymore - Our archmages have become summoners. How many pure attack spells are there now? One? Maelstrom, and that's a level 2 spell.

Destroy Undead (Life II) and Wither (Entropy I) are all I can think of. Hastur's Razor, Pillar of Fire, and Crown of Brilliance also are direct damage spells, but they're unit-specific.

My archmages don't become summoners... they become dominators

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Entropy III (enervation) also deals direct damage, but much less than Air II. It does however also give Enervated, a very negative promotion.

 

[Grand Seeker]

About enervation: currently it makes it so that the unit gain less XP from future battles. Is it possible to remake it so that it also removes allready earned XP and promotions? I'm guessing its difficult, but wouldn't that be more fun?

 

[rusty217]

About enervation: currently it makes it so that the unit gain less XP from future battles. Is it possible to remake it so that it also removes allready earned XP and promotions? I'm guessing its difficult, but wouldn't that be more fun?

Losing all your hard earned (and in some cases impossible to regain) promotions to a spell..... more fun? Absolutely not!

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Losing all your hard earned (and in some cases impossible to regain) promotions to a spell..... more fun? Absolutely not!

Actually, seeing as that's a level 3 spell, so AIs will almost never be able to cast it, it's not a big deal except vs Human players. As for humans, if you let them get an archmage right next to your stack, you're probably screwed anyway.