(SEE REPLY #40 for more detailed suggestions and ideas)
First thing,
I know Elemental is not MOM... Moving on...
Currently when you design your Sovereing, i wouldn't see why you wouldn't want to pick all the spellsbooks?
I would of liked for Elemental to perhaps have a tiered system for spellbooks (a la mom). Or something that depending on how many points you invest in Earth or Fire magic (at character creation) you would have access to more or less spells, and maybe research them faster.
At this point, I feel my Sovereign is the Jack of all "Magics". I'd like to see the game impose some kind of restrictions to "multiclass" sovereign.
Or are all powerful tank mages in again?
Because of how MOM presented spellbooks and talent picks (both with the potential of being extremely effect (spellbooks as much as talents) it offered so much customization as to strategy and overall approach to end game. I find it's too easy to design a all around sovereign that can learn all the magic that exists. Should there be any type of limitations to this?
Someone had suggested that maybe, you get the basic spell book. And that later spell levels require X amount of shards of the appropriate Element?
And this point, there is not point in NOT picking all spellbook, as well as there being no "consequences" in doing so.
Also, unlike MOM, there aren't enough 'good' talents taht would lead you to believe that you could do more fighter oriented Sovereign. Almost feels like, they shouldn't even allow you to pick the spellbooks or not. Just have them all by default.
Anyone thinking along these lines?
Feedback plz.
Thanks,
V
I agree with this, as it stands now you might as well pick all of the spellbooks. If you want to make strategy diverse and this game diverse then do something like this and give each magic school attributes.. like maybe fire magic has a lot of direct damage and ice is defensive.. things like that
Did you just read the subject line? lol
One reason.
Life is like a box of glass. You never know what shards you're going to get.
OK, and because of that magic deserves to be put in a blender, then evenly spread across the "schools of magic"?
It would be more diverse if SD when they revamp magic made the magic sphere/schools more focused...
for instance,
FIRE - 90% offensive , Attack damage no buffs by itself, but then if you pick up enhancement book then you get a Flame weapon buff that require both books to get access to. But lots of variety to Damage spells PBAOE, AOE, Walls of Flame that sweep away from the caster etc
EARTH - 90% Defensive, does damage through being attacked, Erects Stone walls to pin down the enemy, Shield of projectiles(stones) encircling the caster that do damage to enemy adjacent units per round and also mitigate damage taken, etc...
WATER/ICE - 60/40 toward Defensive control and shields with some 40% damage spells
AIR - 60/40 toward offensive spels like pushbacks (which could be argued are defensive unless had damage associated) and Directional pushes to help Melee types close range on enemy ranged units, Tornados and such which can immobilize a target or lift high to a large fall to the ground for physical damage.
OR
Setup some sort of Rock-Paper-Scissors-X where Water counters Fire, Fire counters Air, Air counters Earth, and Earth Counters Water.
Just some thoughts I had which might make the magic system more enjoyable though possibly tougher on the AI to use effectively
The shard spawn system & map overview combined could make it advantageous to invest in all the element-based spellbooks. But the keyword here is "could".
As it is, the shards give no modifiers. Moreover, if even if they did give modifiers, they only give modifiers to combat magic, and only after tech'ing - tech'ing that will give you a massive advantage if used on military upgrades instead, as combat magic is so underpowered as to be useless.
A much better question is: why would you get any element spellbooks? They are next to useless before tech'ing, tech'ing them is actively handicapping yourself, and they're not even free to get. The element spellbooks are nothing but a newbie trap.
With a login name like MageMatthew you can tell i would be all over the Mage in this game.
But having started many games i can say for sure picking more than 2 books is really a waste of points.
Since mana takes forever to regen and that having all those powerful spells are usless since you are forced to sit around getting mana back or to run around avoiding fights till you regen enough.
currently there is a lot of spell redundency however to counter your arguement of sit around waiting for mana, I also favor the caster route and any champ with 12 or greater INT gets imbued, I run around with 6-8 caster champs and level them then I intend to teleport travel two casters to a stack of combined arms units and the casters are for support summons heals and teleporting, magic damage is my last resort, but I gen 6-8 mana a turn this way.
Ultimately its a playstyle choice today and there is room to make the magic systems more diverse.
LOL @ first sentence
The Subject Line was a bit of a catch phrase, more than my actual opinion. As I said, I think Magic needs to be specialized one way or the other. Copy/Paste + Change animation of spells just doesn't cut it if you are trying to build a "magical world". Spell design should have been one of the key focus when making the game.
*INCOMING MOM REFERENCE*
When I bought Master of Magic. I remember taking the spellbook to my room at night, to read before going to bed. Trying to figure out what type of wizard I'd design/play next. Talents aside, the spellbooks would completly change how you could play the game. From using Nature to terraform your cities into uber meccas, or using Death magic to hamper all your oponents progress (yeah yeah that one is in there shush), or... probably my all time favorite... Armageddon... Where you would summon from 5 to 10 Volcanos across both Myrran and Arcanus (YUP, that's right MOM was spread across 2 "planes/worlds"). Each of which would give you +1 Mana per turn. Now that is an EPIC spell. Hell there was even a "Time Stop" spell where all oponents were stuck in time, while you could progress. Ok, it had a MAD mana upkeep, but it was still possible.
It's sad to say, but It almost feels like the main focus was to build the engine, and making the components interact with each other and see if it can 'work'. The amount of spells (given their lack of variety and the "mirrored" spells) is pretty low.
I remember a post from Brad saying something along these lines:
"I don't even what to say how many spells we have..."
Under my initial "MOM 2 Train is coming" infatuation, I read that as "Guys... there are sooooo many spells".
After seeing the game... playing it... I think he meant something entirely different...
This game sucks.
So, a summary of what I think people said (along with my commentary/questions):
Personally: I often use Nature's Bounty and Brilliance, so I want the Enchantment book, but I think I'm willing to research it instead of spending 5 points on it. If I were only going to take one element, it'd be Earth, because if all the tactical spells are roughly equivalent, Lower Land makes enough difference to me that I'd pick Earth over the others -- but that doesn't settle the issue of whether to take any books at all. If shards give even just the 10% essence bonus, I might choose to build them at some point when I think I can afford the 100 gildars each, but I admit that's a pretty steep price I might not be willing to pay. If shards give nothing at all I'd obviously ignore them, but that leaves the issue of whether to value the elemental spells.
I'm uncertain about the 4-summonable-creatures thing. Sounds good, since when they die or if they've lost too many hit points you resummon them with mana instead of spending other resources. In fact I've done this in the early game. Are they powerful enough to substitute for a big army later in the game? I've only played the early game and never got into serious warfare (aside from conquering minor tribes); I'd be willing to believe the summonables aren't powerful enough to take over another serious faction, but I don't know from my own experience.
And here's the thing I'm not sure anyone has addressed: does the value of magic over military depend on which victory condition you're aiming for? If you don't want to conquer, and just want a big enough army to discourage invasion, does magic become a little more valuable and higher-level military techs a little less?
they should make it so if you pick one school of magic you are more powerful in that one school. But if you pick many schools, you get a larger variety of spells, but each is weaker. (This of course would only work if the spells were very varied.)
In my opinion you should only be able to choose 2 elemental books and 1 life or death book (depending on kingdom or empire) by default.More books should be a trait/talent: 3 elements expertise, 4 elements magic mastery trait/talent. So right at the beginning there are choices and trade offs. Taking less should also be possible via the 'negative talents' making a pure melee sov possible.
I see my champions as the primary users of the tactical battle magic. My sov should be able to conjure mind blowing global effect spells with multi turn cast times. Other sov's should be able to be attuned magically to these effects an able to counter or resist them through shorter multi turn casts.
For instance 1 sov starts a 5 turn cast of a spell which rots the food all over the globe (-2 to food production for each city of each faction for 3 turns) and another sov can resist this by countering with blessed fields (+2 food production for each of the casting sovs cities for 2 turns) with a 2 turn cast time or counter with a counter spell, where the the level of the to countering spell is the same as the cast time of the counter spell.
The sort of global effect spells that someone is able to cast are set by the amount of shards / elemental books controlled/choosen.
This would make it a lot more a war on magic. Do you want to commit your sov to a multi turn cast wich speeds up all your stack or gives them more hp or more attack power. Or do you want to wait an maybe counter a spell from a sov who is lurking on your borders.
Because tactical spells are fun early game when it is stack against stack. But when it scales up to multi city faction against multi city faction the magic system should do the same.
**** EPIC POST WARNING *****
Hi Dalamb, & Everyone else reading
# 1 - Having all the element books is great because they each provide a powerful summonable creature. (sounds good to me but has to be balanced against whatever else you could do with the points; is it enough by itself if all the other criticisms are true?)
# 2 - Having more than one element book is useless because the spells are all duplicates of each other. (well, there's #1 to consider)
# 3 - Having any element books is useless because shards don't do anything (someone confirmed they don't increase spell damage, but do they give the 10% bonus to essence? and doesn't this presume the spells themselves are useless?)
# 4 - Having element books is useless because tactical spells are underpowered (well, what about strategic ones)?
# 5 - Having powerful spells is useless because you have to sit around waiting for mana to regenerate (but it regenerates when you travel, and sometimes you have to wait to regain hit points; do those two things mitigate the waiting-for-mana at all, or are they irrelevant?)
# 6 - Element books are useless because you have to research to use them and you're better off researching military techs. (Uh, you still get spells without any tech research; there's the usefulness-of-spells issue raised in #4. But, if someone believes the spells actually are worth having, they don't need techs to use them -- at least in the Amarian tree; never looked at the one for the Fallen. Shards, on the other hand, do require some research.)
# 7 - You don't need the Enchant book because you can research it (3 techs in the Magic tree -- though there's the issue about whether researching that far diverts you too much from more important techs).
First of all, I like to mention that the subject line was a bit of catch phrase. Also, this actually overlaps with a bunch of concepts. Let me try to flesh it out a bit more.
(Value of Spellbooks in relation to character creation points)
Facts:
* Elemental books cost 3 pts (Which give you access to almost all the spells of that element)
* Summoning (Now removed from start) & Echantment cost 5 points.
* Each Attribute point is worth 3 Character points.
* Isn't the spear worth more than 5 points (sorry can't verify right now)
* Brilliant talent, that gives you +1 Tech per turn, is worth 5 points.
Conclusion:
Just comparing these values (and their worth) it is obvious that there is a balance issue in terms of costs and effect. How could 1 attribute point equal the ability to cast all the spells in a given element? And how could a mere +1 to tech/turn cost more than the 'ability' to cast elemental spells?
In the current state of things, one could easily just take all the spellbooks with very minor sacrifice to other abilities or talents. I would like to see it difficult to be the Jack-Of-All-Magics. If anything creating more unique Elements of magic, would just increase replayability and offer different styles of playing the game. If it trivializes magic since you can take it all. Anyways, i have to be careful for I was about to start talking about another point. (Spell diversity & Uniqueness)
Before moving on the is the point about being able to research the Enchantment spellbook. I find this to be wrong, and wrong again. If you could research "it", it should be linked to so epic quest, where you'd have go kill something to get it. Gaining a new magical book should not be as easy as having some people research 'stuff'.
(School of Maigc &Spells vs. Diversity/Uniqueness)
* Each School of magic has it's Attack Spell which causes the same amount of damage.
* Each School of magic has it's own powerful summoning spell. (Summoned pets have identical attributes across schools of magic.) -- I Haven't personally confirmed this running off what contributing posters said ---
* Each School of magic has it's own "destroy" terrain spell. (To Desert, to Artic, To water (Flood), To Mountain)
* Even though there is a Summoning School of magic, all elemental schools of magic have summoning spells...
Conclusions:
Apart from buffs, it appears that the differences between Schools of Magic is trivial at best. The worst being the attack spells since they are a copy paste of each other (your intelligence dictates the dmg). Given the fact that there is no difference between a fireball and lightning strike, it's just a different animation period.
Look at the terrain destruction spells, apart from Mountain and flood (which can block passage), The other 2 (To Desert or to Arctic) have absolutely no purpose whatesoever. Apart from giving you the ability to destroy a resource node. (Why not make an Enchantment spell called, destroy node and keep flood & raise mountain and get rid of Scorch (to desert) and Freeze (to Arctic)?) If terrain had some impact it might be usefull, but it dosen't so for now those spells are mainly for "show" or an extremely intricate way to cut down forest tiles... >.>
And correct me if I'm wrong, but you couldn't even make your empire/kingdom into an arctic wonderland. For the land around your cities reverts to Fallen/Grassland automatically.
Although I agree that each school of magic deserves an "attack" spell. But it dosen't need to be a "ball of wtver" hurled at the enemy. One School could focus more on Debuffs/Curses, while another one has very good unit buffs, another could have very direct single unit dmg (nukes) while the last one could specialize in DOT's & AOE's. Balancing might be not super fun, but It would be well worth it's diversity.
Now, this is a core design choice, so no real point it poking at it too much. But if you are going to make a school of magic called 'summoning' then why give summoning spells to other schools of magic. It's pretty flawed when you come to think about it, it would be as if you could cast an 'earth' spell in Fire School of Magic. I think it was a bad idea to make a school of magic that overlaps with other schools of magic. If anything I'd suggest making a Summoner talent, when the person has bonuses on research Summoning spells and mana/essence costs.
(Mana - Regeneration, Casting & a few ideas)
* You gain 1 mana per turn... Yeah...
* Only cost 1 essence for any enchantment (Please correct me if i'm wrong)
* All spells can be cast in 1 turn (same as above point )
If Elemental is this magical world coming back to life, where is the magic in it? I would of loved to see Shrines giving you mana per turn, then again they would have to move to a magic pool in which you "stockpile" mana. I love the 'avatar' concept of the ruler, although I think the ruler should play by a different set of rules then other heroes that 'can use magic'.
One of the fears of having a stockpiled mana pool for your Sovereign would be:
"But if you have like 1000's of mana points stored, you'll be able to cast as many spells as your movement allows... "
True, BUT... Master of Magic had a very good system fleshed out!
Mana was like any other ressource, you could harvest it in magical nodes and also have buildings which would generate some. (Some races even gave you mana as population increased. ) You would invest that Mana into 3 things.
Research - > Pretty Straightfoward, it would determine how fast spells are researched (Not really applicable to elemental at all)
Mana -> This would be the ammount you direct towards your stockpile.
Casting -> Now this is the important part. Be it overland (strategic) spells or Tactical spells, this skill played a major role in them. This was literally "how much mana you could "channel" per turn". So yeah, you could have 100 000 mana points, but if you had a caster skill of 5, you could only expend 5 points of mana during a combat. Not only that, but major spells (which could cost 100's of mana points) would have their casting times based on this value.
So for example, you wanted to cast "City Buff XYZ" and it cost 250 mana. Well if you had a Casting skill of 5, it would take you 50 turns to cast the spell, but if you had a skill of 25, it would only take you 10.
If there would be ANY way of trying to squeeze this concept inside Elemental, I swear to the gods of TBS games would give us hugs & kisses.
I believe there needs to be a much more severe scaling of mana costs for spells. As it stands all spells can be cast in 1 turn. I like the idea of casting this world altering spell that takes my Sovereign multiple turns to prepare before it is cast.
So this would allow us to have maybe more powerful spells with them being offset by very high mana costs, and casting time.
Same goes for summoning and enchantments. 1 Essence for any enchantment? Regardless of it's strength makes it feel a bit of a trivial cost. One of the ways I think they prevented exploiting this, is limiting the powerful summons from the elemental magics to 1 only per school of magic. I really think Mana / Turn upcost, combined with a mana pool system for the Sovereign would really help balance things.
Epic post is epic,
right now damage spells are not that great although area ones are pretty good. but if you use your research to get the support spells magic is quite powerful. I'm talking about deflect, heal and confuse. to name a few. and if you go up really high level you can get erthquake and flood
Offspring regen health and mana in tactical battle
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