Tier 4 spells and new unit to wield them

[sputnik323]

Ok first off, I know a lot of people are dissatisfied with tier 3 spells, and I agree that they need to be reworked, I also think that tier 4 spells can be included and would add an exciting level of game-play. I think FF would also be a better place for this idea than vanilla FFH. So here goes.

I propose a higher tier of spells, channeling 4. This would be a late game option, and very difficult to attain, in part to somewhat counter the heavy hitters that have 60 strength in FFH .34. Some thoughts on making this difficult to attain would be to require 3-4 of the same mana type, can only be upgraded from a lvl 10 archmage or lich, and requires divine essence tech. only one unit can be created, and they can only have 1 tier 4 spell. Maybe Govannon and Corlindale (maybe other arcane heroes as well) can also use a tier 4 spell if the other conditions are met. The new unit could be based off of D&D lore, - called the “Arcane Spirit”
“Now focused on reusing spells and using them more often, archmages can also exist as an arcane spirit. They are said to retreat into seclusion to study magic, eventually merging with the singular Demispell.”

Arcane Spirit can learn and use any spell from other units, priest, archmage, druid, ect. With a learn spell ability. –(Like Govannon but reversed.)

Ideas for tier 4 spells

Air: Flying: Adds flying promotion to casters stack.

Body: Transmutation: Units in stack gain random, werewolf, vampirism, flying, or invisibility promotions. Can only given 1 time per unit.
Or: Transform Dragon: caster becomes a dragon for 3 turns, can only be cast 1 per 5 turns

Chaos: Blitzing Speed: All units in the stack gain 2 movement and Blitz promotion – ends after this turn.

Death: Undead Army: Summons 1 Shadowrider, 1 vampire, 3 Wraith, 2 ghost catapults, 4 skeleton archers, 5 skeletons, 3 pyre zombies, and 1 undead assassin. Can only be cast 1 per 10 turns. Units die if they are outside the caster’s stack at the end of turn. If cast again all previous units die and are remade.

Earth: Armor of stone: Grants stoneskin promotion to all units in player’s stack

Enchant: Enchant Weapons: Each unit in stack is enchanted with fire weapons that does 10% fire collateral damage up to 3 units. Ends after 1 turn.

Entropy: Lose strength: Enemy units within 1 radius lose all attack strength (retain all defense strength) for 3 turns, can only be cast 1 per 15 turns.

Fire: Fire from Heaven: Brings a meteor from space causing a nuclear explosion and fallout (same as ICBM in vanilla civ), cast 1 per 10 turns.

Ice: Wall of Ice: creates a barrier of ice spikes 3 tiles across, any units who enter the barrier gain 10% to 50% damage per turn. Melts in 1 turn on desert, 2 turns on other tiles, and 4 turns on tundra or ice.

Law: Unyielding Empire – No unhappiness in all cities you control. Ends if caster leaves your cultural borders.

Life: Perfect Health – Removes all unhealthiness from all cities. Ends if caster leaves your cultural borders

Metamagic: Master of Magic: Adds the master of magic promotion to all arcane units in stack. Master of magic allows the units to cast 3 spells per turn.
Or: Retrain: Arcane units in stack lose all promotions and allowed to retrain different spell paths according to current mana available up to their current level.

Mind: Control City: Gain control of enemy city and adds unyielding order to that city, and all control all non-hero units within that city for 20 turns, ends if caster leaves the city or is killed, after 20 turns that city becomes permanently under the players control. Units that leave the city revert to previous owners control before 20 turns.

Nature: Bring to life: All forests in your borders have a 15% chance to attack enemy units in your borders. If this attack occurs, enemy units lose 10%-25% health.

Shadow: Teleport: Teleports casters stack to any visible tile. (maybe within a range) Cast time 2 turns. Can only be cast 1 per 5 turns.

Spirit: Spirit Workers: adds 20 hammers to all cities. Ends if caster leaves cultural borders.

Sun: Summon Sun Dragon: Summons the sun dragon: permanent. 3 turn cast time – can only be cast 1 per 40 turns.

Water: Dense fog: Covers the casters space and adjacent spaces with fog of war, can only be dispersed by enemy units walking on that space.

These are just some ideas, I wanted them to be powerful and hard to get, mainly designed for late game battles.

I am interested to hear what others think of these ideas, what spells they would propose for tier 4 spells, or even if you think another level of spells is a stupid idea.

 

[Mailbox]

I don't like another level of spells to be honest, by the time people reach the end game the game is decided anyways. I think anything added to the late game is relatively unimportant unless the entire game is redesigned or balanced so that end game empires have the same relative amount of strength. That would mean making war harder to wage and making annexing huge portions of an empire harder, stuff I'd like but I don't see it being added to Civ 4 because it makes the game very different.

 

[Valkrionn]

I kind of like this idea, if just because some multiplayer games can end up in a stalemate.... Something like this could help avoid that. However, a few of those spells are a bit TOO powerful, like your idea for Death. Summoning an entire army seems a bit much... Would be amazing, though . The Unyielding Order spell for Law would be way overpowered for fallow civs, one of which is about to be added to FF... Also, the Master of Magic spell for Metamagic seems too much, although I like the Retrain idea.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I think the great idea in your post is rewarding the player that chooses to focus on a single mana type with a new powerful tool. as it stands now, aside from affinity, there is little reason to do that.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I was wanting to add tier 4 spells a while back, but eventually decided that it would probably not be worth it to add spells as complex as I wanted if they'd be seen so rarely.

In my version, you'd probably need the Tower of Mastery in order to get tier 4 spells, although I might instead decide that they should require the lesser Tower of the appropriate mana type. I might although I might also add an Amurite Cassawallen UU with the ability. (This would be a limit 1 national unit requiring around level 16, and both archmages and arcane heroes could upgrade to this.)

 

[Deon]

to somewhat counter the heavy hitters that have 60 strength

There won't be "heavy hitters" with str. 60. It's Mulcarn Reborn only and there's a 1000% weapon against him so I think it's intended to have only one way to counter him since he's a god and it would be a bit strange to "counter" a god with non-hero spells .

However some big "rituals" like lesser version of World Spells requiring a big amount of some mana type/different mana types could be nice.

 

[avalonnn]

For the Dragon, and perhaps some others, might want to have it take several turns to cast.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

And what about only one T4 spell per player and cannot be changed? Player can upgrade one ArchMage to ArcaneSpirit(Each empire can have only one in whole game - once dead, unit cannot be reobtained any way; immune to capture) and choose only one of T4 spell (unit must have T3 of this spell and Channeling4).

 

[Caradoc]

To me, most of these did not seem particularly extreme and many would be candidates to replace some of the lamer level 3 spells we have now. If access needs to be limited, you could introduce an equivalent of the High Priest for each school of magic so that only one unit would have access to the spell.

 

[sputnik323]

@charles maybe if some of these spells were a little less powerful they could make cool T3 spells. The only problem is replacing spell ideas for T3 that aren't too powerful but really cool and unique. any ideas?

 

[sputnik323]

taking Magister's idea - since the elemental spells I suggested for earth, air, and water aren't all that cool. The tower of elementals, necromancy, ect. allow 1 Archmage to have 1 tier 4 spell. The fire one that is a "nuke" The tower of necromancy allows the chaos one blitzing speed. The Tower of alteration allows units in stack to teleport. And the tower of divination allows the summon of a dragon - a one time permanant (consuming the archmage?). To really make the towers special, the spells could be weakened and balanced that all 4 towers would give 1 spell to each archmage. so 4 towers and 4 archmages = each mage has 1 special teir 4 spell. This makes more practical sense because making so many new spells is kinda hard. now only 4 spells have to be made, making things much easier to accomplish.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I like the idea of giving the towers a unique spell

 

[Valkrionn]

Yeah, makes the Towers more valuable, and would be much easier to balance than another tier.

 

[Darksaber1]

My name is Darksaber1, and I approve this message

 

[BeefontheBone]

The towers idea I like a lot more - Divination is pretty much the only one I'll ever bother with unless going for ToM (which I've never achieved), and this would a) make them useful on their own and b) make them useful if ToM is disabled, while being easier to balance than one per sphere. More powerful ones could be one-shots, effectively an extra woldspell.

 

[zup]

No, no, no ...

Give Channeling 4 to archmagi and channeling 3 to magi. Problem solved. Then make these tier 4 spells powerful. Like FF equivalent of WMDs. They don't all have to be offensive or do direct damage, but they need to be powerful.

Why? Because highly skilled, experienced etc casters should be dangerous. And they still die easily if you don't know what you are doing.

Yes it is not very balanced but the end game needs more mechanics to make the one who already is invincible to steamroll faster.

 

[sputnik323]

I agree with zup. If you spend the time and money to be powerful... let it be powerful - isn't that the idea behind the illians?

 

[BugReportage]

I have an awesome idea for a level 4 spell!
SUN IV: RED GIANT. It happens over 3 turns.
First the entire map gets turned to burning sands, YES EVEN THE OCEAN.
Second the entire map gets scorched and every unit NOT in a city gets killed.
Third Everyone loses.

Hey, if level 3 spells are game breaking these ones should just break.
WOOT! -looks at pictures of mars- Hrm...

ANOTHER AWESOME IDEA:
ENTROPY IV: UNIVERSAL HEAT DEATH
Only 1 turn for this one guys. Just says this:
"Space has expanded to the point where all matter has suddenly pulled itself apart as the space between particles expands at speeds faster than light..."
And then Thermodynamics wins the game.

 

[Valkrionn]

lol

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

ENTROPY IV: UNIVERSAL HEAT DEATH
Only 1 turn for this one guys. Just says this:
"Space has expanded to the point where all matter has suddenly pulled itself apart as the space between particles expands at speeds faster than light..."
And then Thermodynamics wins the game.

Random blobs of power expressed as that which we all disregard,
Ordered states of nature on a scale which no one thinks about,

Don't speak to me of anarchy or peace or calm revolt, man,
We're in a play of slow decay orchestrated by Boltzmann,

It's entropy, it's not a human issue,
Entropy, it's matter of course,
Entropy, energy at all levels,
Entropy, from it you cannot divorce
And your pathetic moans of suffrage tend to lose all significance,

Extinction, degradation: the natural outcome of our ordered lives,
Power, motivation: temporary fixtures for which we strive,

Something in our synapses assures us we're ok
But in our disequilibrium we simply cannot stay,

It's entropy, it's not a human issue,
Entropy, it's matter of course,
Entropy, energy at all levels,
Entropy, from it you cannot divorce,

A stolid proposition from a man unkempt as I,
My affectatious nature I cannot rectify,
But we are out of equilibrium unnaturally,
A pang of consciousness at death and then you will agree.

sorry for hijacking