What's a Tower of Mastery do?

MalkutX

Warlord
Joined
Jan 11, 2008
Messages
103
I know it wins the game, but why? What powers does it have that can make all the other races surrender and (presumably) stop Armageddon in it's tracks?
 
I've always viewd it as apotheosis for your civilization, moving you and your people from the world to perfection. perfect contorl of all magic should give you god like powers. i think that the world continues on without you.

edit: crosspost
 
I always thought it was just general "now we control all magic, let's see you try to do anything against us using the thaumic equivalent of pointy sticks".
 
I always thought it was just general "now we control all magic, let's see you try to do anything against us using the thaumic equivalent of pointy sticks".

More than that, actually: The Age of Magic was supposedly a time of incredible acts of magical power because the magic was more concentrated. Now that there are people performing magic all over the place, we're stuck with lame effects like burning entire forests to the ground, causing deserts to bloom, making entire armies lose their will to fight, etc.

If the Tower of Mastery were to control all magic in the world, the controller of the tower would become nigh-omnipotent.
 
More than that, actually: The Age of Magic was supposedly a time of incredible acts of magical power because the magic was more concentrated. Now that there are people performing magic all over the place, we're stuck with lame effects like burning entire forests to the ground, causing deserts to bloom, making entire armies lose their will to fight, etc.

If the Tower of Mastery were to control all magic in the world, the controller of the tower would become nigh-omnipotent.

Wow... if that's lame and low because of lack of focus...:eek:

I suddenly began so well to understand the Tower of Mastery...
 
I always thought it was just general "now we control all magic, let's see you try to do anything against us using the thaumic equivalent of pointy sticks".



So did I, especially sicne it seems similar to the "Spell of Mastery" from an old game called Master of Magic, which granted control over all magical forces to the caster.


I suppose if you really wanted to, someone could mod the game so that buildign the tower "only" say, prevents all other civs from casting spells, all of the builder's units get at least channeling one, and access to every mana.

See how many people could resist you.

Also, with the current settings though, requiring 16 different manas, you usually need to control almost enough of the map to win a conquest victory anyway, so maybe it's just the straw that breaks the camels back..........
 
Hmm, I hadn't though of making everyone else unable to cast spells. Thats a good idea (I'm not sure if the channeling 1 bonus is needed)
 
Well, maybe more appropriate to make it so all other Civs require Divine promotion in order to cast. You can't quite cut off the Gods themselves I'd say.

Actually, The Bane Divine is said to do just that. If I figure out a simple way to do it, I may make Tower of Mastery make all your rivals summoning and sorcery spells unusable and The Bane Divine Ritual make rival divine spells unusable (instead of destroying the Disciples). I'm not sure about level 1 spells (a few of them don't really seem like they need magic to use anyway)
 
I don't like the idea of mastery towers shutting down access to that magic type for everyone on the map. That's just way too powerful, and honestly quite crippling in some cases.

I'd rather see Mastery towers add 1 of each of their associated mana type plus a govanon/hemah style UU specialized in that area.
 
It isn't possible to grant more than 3 types of mana, or else I would have added that effect already.

You do realize that this wonder makes you win the game currently, don't you? Thats more overpowered.

Still, I'm not sure about cutting of magic. I'm still considering it, but I don't know how to do it yet and I'm not quite sure I want to. If I do implement it I'll probably also raise the cost and tech requirements.
 
What does it matter then? Just for playing past the end of history when you click one more turn?
 
For when you turn off that victory condition. Many people play with no victory conditions enabled so that they can just play out the story in their minds, or play until they are bored with the current balance of power being too far in their favor.

For example: Altar of Luannotar (Final) triggers a Golden Age, and improves the effects over previous version. So it already has a use even if not a victory condition. Tower of Mastery just causes everyone in the world to declare war on you when you start to build it, so there is no incentive to actually complete the tower if it isn't a VC right now.
 
The thing is, if the Tower of Mastery is "supposed" (I want to use that term very loosely) to make you win, it probably should do something pretty awesome, maybe something that would alter the balance of power so far in the builder's favor that they become the inevitable rulers of Erebus (or at least that corner of it, if the map isn't supposed to represent the entire world)
That's what inspired the whole, "Nobody can cast without your permission" thing.
 
Perhaps the Tower of Mastery could draw all mana from the worlds mana nodes, (change the bonus graphics to coal or something) and give the controlling player 5 of each to trade, hoard, etc. Kinda like Hollywood and Rock and Roll.
 
Currently a building can only provide 3 different resources (and it must be the same number of all 3), so this isn't currently possible. Of course, I've been trying to convince Kael to change this.
 
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