Top-level Summon Balance

[WCH]

Is it just me or are the 3rd level summons available to archmages completely imbalanced with each other?

It's kind of cool how Djinn strength depends on how much elemental mana you have available... but it means that, once you've got a decent amount of mana, every other summon becomes completely worthless in comparison. Like, when exactly are you going to want to summon water or fire elementals when your Djinn is 50%+ stronger than them? At which point Water III and Fire III become wasted promotions, which is a shame.

Other summons are just simply worthless... mistform being the obvious example. Completely freaking useless.

Add to this the fact that having so many of the third level spells being summons is just really boring... they're not differentiated at all; it's as if the design team simply didn't have the imagination to come up with anything interesting for them, which I know isn't the case, because the game is crammed full of amazingly cool and diverse content.

My suggestion would be to scrap every summon except Air Elemental (because of its ability to scout, the spawning lightning elementals which is simply cool, and the fact that it can hit naval targets) and Djinn, replace all the removed ones (Earth, Water and Fire elementals, Mistform, etc) with powerful and interesting spells that won't get completely overshadowed.

I understand that some of this is a carryover from a specific Summoner unit... I didn't play FFH back when that existed, so if someone could explain it to me, I'd appreciate it.

 

[Ecofarm]

Other summons are just simply worthless... mistform being the obvious example. Completely freaking useless.

Mists are awesome, they just aren't for killing. They are for pillaging and p-leveling. What, you think they should have 4 moves (with enhancement), be able to pillage, HN and invis and still have base str 10?!

3 archmages summoning mists = ~300 gold/turn. They are like a great merchant that destroys all surrounding improvements. I imagine that grigori twincast + spellstaff shadow 3 archmages could completely level a civ's improvements - all of them - to the ground in about 5 turns, netting you around 3k gold -- without declaring war.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6856357&postcount=16
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6856357&postcount=18

Fire does collateral.

Host (law) stays if it gets a kill, as does pit beast (chaos). They both get promotions; pits have access to CR3 and can pillage.

Water seems to suck.

Dunno Earth's advantages.

Also, when balancing top level summons, we need to consider the power of the tier 1 and 2 spell of that mana in order to balance the manas as a whole and not just the tier 3 options. For example: some manas serve as hybrids, having utility tier 1 and 2 but summon tier 3. Others are pure summon or pure utility or summon tier 1 and 2 but utility tier 3. Lastly, some manas serve functions that are not possible otherwise (sanctify/spring/scorch). I don't think every one should have a powerful (as in base str) tier 3 summon.

Ok, 1 last (really this time) point: some summon's (and even whole mana's) usefullness depends on strat, playstyle, circumstance and settings.

Unless water or earth does something I do not know about, they might be improved (although water has strong utilities, I am not convinced earth does).

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Mists are awesome, they just aren't for killing. They are for pillaging and p-leveling. What, you think they should have 4 moves (with enhancement), be able to pillage, HN and invis and still have base str 10?!

3 archmages summoning mists = ~300 gold/turn. They are like a great merchant that destroys all surrounding improvements. I imagine that grigori twincast + spellstaff shadow 3 archmages could completely level a civ's improvements - all of them - to the ground in about 5 turns, netting you around 3k gold -- without declaring war.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6856357&postcount=16
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6856357&postcount=18

Fire does collateral.

Host (law) stays if it gets a kill, as does pit beast (chaos) (they both get promotions).

Water seems to suck.

Dunno Earth's advantages.

Water's pretty useful when you consider the fact that they are waterwalking, and so are your archmagi that are summoning them. In other words, use them as defensive summons for your waterwalking siege mage force.

Earth I believe just has high base strength, not much else going for it.

Sun (Aurealis) has +2 affinity, so you can boost it fairly high (especially with Malakim/Empyrean/Dies Diei)

Death is useful mainly for Lichdom, but Wraiths are pretty solid summons too, since they fear and enervate.

Hosts are freaking sweet. Enough said. Also, there seems to be a minor bug with them, where they can actually build up a buffer of life extensions if they both attack and are attacked in a turn, since each gives them +1 turn.

Mistforms are incredibly useful due to HN. As mentioned, you can bring a civ to its knees without ever declaring war.

Body... Flesh Golems. Need I say more?

I usually tend to end up with Djinns though, since I like using Domination and Metamagic helps prevent those pesky resists. That and by the time I get archmages I usually have at least 2-3 vassals and their palace mana.

If anything, what we need are more level 2 summons. Right now the only ones are Death, Tiger, and Sand Lion, of which only Death is widely available.

 

[Slvynn]

Its all about cicumstances, affinities and synergies (civ palaces/ amounts of nodes in empire/ holy shrines).

imo each elemental have own use, and water one can be cool if yoo play lets say OO lanun, so with hs you have 2 water manas that mean more affinity. Also i heard that water elementals can transport ships through land squares (not sure with this one).

All summons have own puprose (air are weak ones , but move alot , on ever terrain and spawn ele elementals (3 str) on kill)
Earth is just tough and i find it useful with luch/bannor mage strats (order mages with +1 str and stoneskin and combat 5 = fighting mages )
Mists -as eco said,

Sun one is mediocre at start but have +2 ! affinity.

Law and Chaos my fav ones since they stay if they kill. (their difference in having Angel and Demon promo accordingly)

Death - powerfull summon only sphere, wraiths also make enervation, while armies of skells or fear causing spectres are awesome.

Mistforms - they are freaking awesome usefull for making 400 gold per turn. You get all other civs to keneeds by downing them. and then just win a game.

About djinss - huh its hard to get such much mana. Not on every map and not with every setting you can obtain that. The sutiation whan yuo have djinn > than 10 str is much more rare than you have it below 10.

Again, its all about circumstances/synergies/settings/gamespeed.

I think my faw ones are Law 3 Hosts (ass-in-jars). With certain civs i can get them very early and just win a game by conquest victory (hehe my fav one) . (much earlier b4 you get those djinns and manas for affinities, or time to pillage with mistforms (mists less usefull in pvp too))

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, I certainly plan to boost summons in my modmod. In my version:

Aurealis will see invisible and target recon units (and, if xienwolf adds some tags I've requested, also units with shadow magic) in stacks (like the basilica elephant in BtS targets cavalry units despite the better defenders)

Balors will have weaker base strength, but 1 fire affinity and 2 entropy affinity. Also, will be AV units that can cast Ring of Fire

I'm bringing back Chaos Marauders for Chaos 2. These now start mutated, and enraged (I don't remove enraged by combat, so they will probably turn barb)

Host will have the Spirit Guide Promotion, so their xp is not wasted.

Pit Beasts can fly

Earth elementals do collateral and can bombard city defenses

Treants can bombard city defenses

Djinni can cast mage spells

Air elementals will pass on their promotions to the lightning elementals they spawn. Also, I'm letting flying negate the amphibious assault penalty.

Water elementals can carry naval units as cargo across land tiles

Fire elementals scorch land they move over

Wraith autocast Defile


All summons will be given a unitcombat, so they can get promotions. I'll probably make most weaker but have more affinity.

I'm implementing the Ice and Dimensional spheres:

Ice will have a level 2 summon, Frost Giant, that is as strong as a level 3 summon. However, they are slow (the heavy promotion would counter the mobility from extension 1&2) and can only enter ice or tundra tiles.

The Tesseract summon would be a non-combat units that can paradrop while carrying other units as cargo.


Additionally, Dimensional sphere spell promotions on the caster will boost the duration of the summons. (The Summer trait will probably be removed)

 

[onedreamer]

Is it just me or are the 3rd level summons available to archmages completely imbalanced with each other?

It's kind of cool how Djinn strength depends on how much elemental mana you have available... but it means that, once you've got a decent amount of mana, every other summon becomes completely worthless in comparison. Like, when exactly are you going to want to summon water or fire elementals when your Djinn is 50%+ stronger than them? At which point Water III and Fire III become wasted promotions, which is a shame.

Other summons are just simply worthless... mistform being the obvious example. Completely freaking useless.

It is just you
You miss some key elements:

- Djinn strength depends on how much mana you have, not just elemental.
- Djinn starts from strength 1, other summons start from strength 5/6.
- Most other summons have +2 affinity, Djin has +1 affinity.
- It is easier to have 3 mana of one type for a civ than 6 different manas.

I find the Djinn to be completely sub-par compared to summoned Elementals. For example 3 Earth mana are easy to come by for dwarves (1 at start, 1 from Tablets of Bambur, one built), with 3 Earth Manas you have Earth Elementals at 15 Strength, plus your mages will be stronger because they will get the Earth II promotion for free.

In order to have a strength 15 Djinn you need 15 different manas. Hence I do think it is just your impression that the Djiinn is overpowered...

 

[Slvynn]

It is just you
You miss some key elements:

- Djinn strength depends on how much mana you have, not just elemental.
- Djinn starts from strength 1, other summons start from strength 5/6.
- Most other summons have +2 affinity, Djin has +1 affinity.
- It is easier to have 3 mana of one type for a civ than 6 different manas.

I find the Djinn to be completely sub-par compared to summoned Elementals. For example 3 Earth mana are easy to come by for dwarves (1 at start, 1 from Tablets of Bambur, one built), with 3 Earth Manas you have Earth Elementals at 15 Strength, plus your mages will be stronger because they will get the Earth II promotion for free.

In order to have a strength 15 Djinn you need 15 different manas. Hence I do think it is just your impression that the Djiinn is overpowered...

agree, i'd go with earth > djinns.
+ you have combat 5 mages that get free earth 2 promo, that with combat 5 and stoneskin can be even better than axes in straight face-to-face meelee attack. This also boosts their xp greatly and empowers earth elementals as well (+50% from emp V)

 

[Zechnophobe]

They're.. fairly balanced.

My only real gripe is that they all do roughly similar accomplishments. That is, smacking a single unit. Kind boring that a lot of spell lines end with ye olde summoned unit.

Oh, and don't be doggin' on the Mistform. It's the only summon available that lets you do major damage during peace time.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

The thing is, by the time I reach archmages I've usually conquered and vassalized at least 2-3 nearby civilizations and stolen their palace mana. That's at least 6 extra strength to my Djinns, easily making them a match for any other top-tier summon. Oh and finally I tend to have at least 2-3 holy shrines too, for even more Djinn affinity. Basically, Djinns > Earth Elementals by the time I reach Archmages.

Overall I'd say it definitely depends on your game settings. With Vassal States on, I usually get most of my mana from stealing other civs' palace mana, so I have a ridiculous amount of random mana that I can't make much use of otherwise.

For frontline combat mages definitely go with Earth and Air of course. 2-3 Earth mana is easy to come by as mentioned, and more power to you if you happen to have the Standing Stones. Air mages are too useful to ignore, since all it takes is maybe 3-4 of them to reduce every stack in a 24-tile area to free xp.

 

[westamastaflash]

Dunno Earth's advantages.

Your mines become covered in resources. :-D Pretty sweet, IMHO.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What if I made Earth Elementals turn the plot it dies on to a Hill? (Similar to how Treants work)

 

[Verily]

What if I made Earth Elementals turn the plot it dies on to a Hill? (Similar to how Treants work)

That would be impossible to reverse, though (unlike sprouting forests), and you could easily destroy a civ by cutting off its food supply with a mass of Earth Elementals. Too powerful.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, probably. What if it were just a 5% or 10% chance? Maybe also with a chance to cast Earthquake? Or maybe earthquake should have a chance to create or destroy hills.

 

[kenken244]

or maybe a spell that destroys hills but creates many earth elementals