One of the three focuses for Fallen Enchantress is Magic. We want the spells to be unique, to feel like casters with enough mana can change the world. We want magic to fill the game, all the sovereigns start with spells though some like Procipinee are better spell casters than Verga. As in Master of Magic you can choose your sovereigns proficiency with the various magic types when you create them.
I’ve attached a PDF of the spells with this post. It includes the normal spells the player can cast, it doesn’t include spell abilities of creatures, spell like abilities granted by equipment and some other special abilities in the game.
I’d like to give a special thanks both to Unacomn for suggesting the Shadow World spell and NuclearNeumann for suggesting the Blood Curse spell. They are fun spells to play with.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I Removed the spell PDF as it is almost a year old and woefully out of date. New spells have been added and even more are coming. check out out dev journal on spells here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ArdQVqLHsI&feature=youtu.be
- Derek 4/11/2012
I dont think that random shards will be a problem, because with a level up you can get higher spell levels in schools, which have shards on the map.
If Int determines the chance to hit with a spell it should affect all spells and not only tactical spells.
Saving for 13 volcanoes already implies to save a lot and so, during the entire game being stuck without magic... it's a choice ! It makes it easier in the end but harder in the begining compared to someone who will use magic a lot since the very begining of the game who will have it harder towards the end ! It's a choice and I think it should still be there no matter what.
Like in MoM you can win a game by building just a few city and defending them while you research everything 'til you reach the spell of mastery and not having destroyed a single ennemy city ( I used to do that but where's the fun in the end ? )
Quoting Derek: ...to feel like casters with enough mana can change the world.
Quoting Derek:
...to feel like casters with enough mana can change the world.
That's where those really powerful and expensive spells comes in handy !
But Seriously, I don't want the Volcano to be the only powerful spell you can use to threaten other players (exactly like in WoM) ...
I would also like to see some subtle global enchantments that change just a little bit a stuff but are just awesome, need some summons as well. Falling Star seems like a another big one, earthquake is pretty common.
I don't agree that there has to be some type of counter. In MoM you could cast detect magic to see what people were casting, and then cast a spell to dispel something before it is cast. However, once someone had cast Call the Void and they picked you as the target--you were pretty much screwed. If they were to put something to dispel enchantments into effect, that would be okay---detecting should be low level, but the dispel should be difficult to be able to use 4 or 5 level spell--or at least one level in all 4 disciplines--they could make a quest spell. That would fun.
Ack, not sure how I missed your and Heavenfall's response. I may have even saw them and it led me down that line of thinking. But I am glad I am not the only one who feels that way.
To give another example...The spell regeneration regens 2hp (+1 per shard). This leaves no room for Int or another stat to enhance the spell unless it enhances the spell in a manner equal to or greater than holding shards.
I counted 89 spells in the pdf. MoM had at least 210 (based on 35 pages of spell descriptions with at least 6 spells per page) and probably as many 250-260 (higher average per page). I didn't find the number anywhere and I didn't want to count by hand.
There were some interestings spells though, and maybe you are going for good game balance. I could live with this if the game is interesting and tight in other dimensions of gameplay. I found quests a disaster in WoM, technology was more of a chore than a game enhancement, exploration was underwhelming, and city mechanics didn't stand out either. I can't imagine these things can change easily.
It seems like Stardock is scheduled to pump out a game each year, but making this game stand out may take multiple years.
Unless the game is really easy, it's not a problem at all (and if it is really easy it doesn't matter a whole lot because it's really easy).
This whole discussion is like saying that gold in Civ V is overpowered because if you don't spend any of it all game you can wait until you get Giant Death Robots, go buy one in every city and in a couple of turns wipe out the entire map.
Well... maybe. But what makes you think you're ever going to GET there when you have to survive the army of Pikemen and Trebuchets that I bought 200 turns earlier and came at you with?
These are games of return on investment. Gold spent early when you really need something is repaid many times over when that extra force lets you take a town from someone unwilling or incapable of spending. Magic spent early to weaken an enemy or take territory that you couldn't take without it will be repaid by what you gained tenfold.
If you can REALLY spend no mana all game until the end with an empire magic focused enough to go after these uber spells and still manage to win? You're playing on the wrong difficulty. It's no different then fighting with one hand tied behind your back.
@tridus
I played numerous games in MoM where I didn't use magic for a long time. On hard and impossible, MoM was pretty challenging for me--impossible was, well impossible without High Men or Halflings with Life magic. But just for fun I would try games where I selected only skills like Warlord, alchemy, artificer, and myrran with no spell books just to see if I could do it.
Using magic early is always beneficial but to me it is risk reward, there is probably another way to do it, it might just cost more money and lives. Depending how I want to play should be up to me. I wasn't saying this is the best way to play, just it should be an option to someone who wants to pursue it. The no magic guy in MoM was really hard to play---but it was fun to try.
It's entirely an option to try. It's not something they should try to balance around because it's so sub-optimal. People talking like it's somehow a problem that you can save mana for hundreds of turns and cast Volcanoes are being silly.
If you can really cast no spells for that long and still be in a position to win, you'd have won a lot earlier if you were willing to cast. There's no problem here at all.
The spell list definitely needs some spells to counter, block, unsumon and dispell magic !
Because it's another interesting path in the way of magic, investing in those spells to be sure that you are superior with your armies compared to someone who will invest in magic !!! It's very strategical to play that way and it might be very hard + it would be totally fitting for this game.
Yes, the spell list is really poor, I don't doubt that MoM had over 200 spells but when I read 250-260 (higher average per page) I'm having a doubt on that ! Or you didn't finish you sentence and it makes it confusing ?
WoM was a disaster okay but since the new patch it's way cooler even though the magic system is still not what I would like it to be !
Now what I will regret is no special modification of terrain (obstacles) for city battle and the magic system ! (yes again, sorry)
I agree with you, I've been way to excited about FE and about all the devs team did (with every update they gave us and what a fantastic job, nothing to say the game looks amazing on almost every points) to accept a spell list that is just good for WoM.
I've been so sad that the teleport spell has been removed in WoM when in definitive it was the only spell of value in the game but WoM is still very good if you don't play a mage =/
Fantastic work Paxton and crew. Very good. To make good even better, we would need Blood magic. We have the elements, life, death but need Blood. Blood for the blood God. Blood from many virgins to sacrifice. Virgins that can be "harvested" by raiding settlements, either your own or the enemies. Blood for a cult of dark demonworshippers. Spells like: bloodletting, rain of frogs, bloodrage, summoning ritual, summon lesser/higher demon or prince of darkness, strength of 1000s, ritual of blood, pillars of blood, minions from the lower planes etc would then come in handy. I know this isnt a request zone but i couldnt resist.
Tridus--I think you and I agree. Give me the option to play stupid if I want, just because I might want to.
@Souls-Stream--
Each color had 10 spells per level so 40 total per chaos, nature, sorcery, life, and death. there are 14 arcane spells. So there were 214 spells total.
More direct damage spells needed.
@KingHobbit: Ooh yeah, I see what you mean now
But ya, if MoM with it's almost 20 years of age succeed to have over 200 spells, I don't see why FE would have less [e digicons]:'([/e]
I don't think we need more "schools" or "books", books are already annoying, we need to put more spells in all existing schools and maybe have a degree of rarity like in MoM. (and Magic, yes, the card game)
For example, the book of spiders is not a bad idea but no, I don't want to see many spells linked to spiders ! Or any other spells declined in books for that matter. It should be kept simple with 6 schools.
If we have one low level spell in death linked to spider and another linked to web / tangled, it's fine with me.
Spiders are really smart animals, they don't attacks blindly until they're dead ! They should use more tactics in battle by being sneaky, eventually burrow (get invisible to the player), capture / poison then attacks with a vampirism attack giving them back their life. They should be hard to kill and flee easily (they're rather scardy cats animals)... Well, that would be an AI that would rock for a spider ! But let's not go too far maybe ! lol
Anyway, books like that adds tons of spells but doesn't add the diversity players are looking for in spells.
This was a very good harrasing spell. Loved and still love this spell
I completely agree with not adding more schools. Life, Death, and the four elements are fine. Some would argue there is room for the arcane spells that are just generic, but I think you could fit them into one of the categories.
I think the mage level is replacing the spell level in a sense. I am fine with that. I still go back to what I said earlier. There is an endless number of expansions available if they keep the spell count where it is at. Let alone, having an expansion based on each of the sovereigns, you could have The Lost Books of XXX, the Library of the Earth Mage, etc.
I think what most people are overlooking is that with the current system there seems to be no need for a spell research system. It would be pointless to research spells if every trait only unlocks 1-2 spells, so I doubt there is one, ie no more arcane labs. Traits have completely replaced the research system. This system works fine if there are only 1-2 spells per trait but kinda breaks down if you increase the amount of spells in each book. The previewed system seems designed to force players to make the choice between different types of spells, ie enchantments or direct-dmg, every time their champions level. Every spellbook is specialized in 1 area. If you increase the amount of spells per book and add more dmg spells to each book than the consequences of your choices is severely lessened.
I believe that more spells are needed to maximize the spell system but the issue is more complex then a lot of people seem to think. Let's have more in depth analysis and less complaining. If more spells are added then Spell books need to stay specialized and something needs to be done so players still have choose between spells and don't get like 5 overlapping spells every time they get a trait.
I had a thought regarding the spider summon portal example, and spells that opperate simillarly. Have a % chance per turn that it would spawn a creature but on turns where it doesn't spawn a creature it makes the next creature summoned stronger. For example some spiderlings on first turn, next turn doesnt spawn anything, next turn spawns either a stronger creature like the black widow or a higher level one (ie lvl2 spiderlings). You could have it kick out a few extra on turn it comes into play if you want it to have some defenders right away, or leave it up to chance.
I like the idea of having a spell improve if the caster surpases the casting requirements, it can make a spell have a kind of momentum and keep it from becoming obsolete. It also works to encourage specialization on the caster so you get a choice between a strong but limited spell pool or a larger pool with weaker spells or somewhere in between. Not sure if the sov should be able to cast all spells as long as they have the resources or not. Could perhaps have an increased mana cost or aditional cost if they dont have the spell ranks to allow them around the casting restriction a normal unit would have.
On the topic of global type spells, you could have something that say boosts all metal production (for all factions) for a few seasons. Or a spell that affects ALL units in the battle the same way- like all units take 2 pts of damage (unless they resist) from burning embers (Think pyroclasm from MtG). Or all units have reduced movement or attack range. The player/ai could have their army built to overcome or mitigate the detrimental effect on their own side as they are planning to use the spell as part of a strategy. Anouther example would be reducing the accuracy of all units in battle with a fog effect, but since you have units with increased accuracy it doesnt hinger you as much.
If there is worry about spell spam, there could be a cooldown applied on a unit, faction, or global level. A damage cap, or mana to damage ratio adjustment based on the amount of mana used past a given threshold could be used to keep a spell like mana blast under control.
Im hoping the aoe targeting is enhanced for FE so you could define different hit zones for a spell. Such as a line effect for walls, a cone effect for a spray, or a quirky hit zone like doing an aoe around a unit other than the caster (targeting a freindly unit which doesnt get hit by the spell effect hitting everything else around them. A three-way shot like effect could then be possible as well with it shooting forward and diagonally. These targeting options would make tactical spells or town battles with walls easier to implement. You could have a line of tiles (either short abstract wall piece or scall pieces that units could stand on, or a hill on the tactical map that gives better range.
I'm not sure that's true. It doesn't say how you actually learn spells, and it would make very little sense if you could make a custom sovereign who starts off with Volcano on turn 1.
If you view the traits as your maximum ability in a given school of magic, then there may still very well be spell research to actually learn the spells in the book. In that case you can add a lot of spells without causing much of a problem... though I hope they don't go overlap crazy.
From what I understood in the PDF I though there were still researchable spells ! My bad if this isn't true.
Now, what wasn't said was if there were more books / spells and they only showed us a couple of them.
And the Fire school, which is supposed to be a direct damage school, has plenty of Strategic spells when they should be more tactical (IE Rain of fire).
I prefer to cast that spell on the battle field rather than on the strategic map on one single army (except if you can cast it on an area protecting yourself for X turns or upkeeping it.
Same, I'd like to see a Tactical Fire Wall or Wall of Dirt (etc...) entraving the path of the opposing army (not one case, IE WoM) because if a powerful caster is alone and fight an army, I don't want to see him die because all units rush towards him, if you have enough mana, even a caster alone in his fortress should be able to repell the ennemy army (to some extent: IE depends of spell cast by oposing army / of magical creatures etc...)
The way I read the learning spells is you select your level 1-5. You can learn the spells according to that level. If you select level three fire and that is your only discipline, you can learn Burning Blade, Burning Hands, Pillar of Flame, Flame Dart, Focus, and Fireball. You would not have access to Summon Fire Elemental, Mantle of Fire, or Firestorm. You could possibly learn Inferno and Wall of Fire if you earn those quest spells.
You would not be able to learn Volcano because you are not high enough in Fire, and since you don't have any Earth--volcano will not be an option.
If that is how the system is going to work, I think it is very interesting and looks great. I would just like to see a few more spells. If that is not in the cards, that's fine. Like I said, expansions could always be the answer.
Souls-Stream--I read it the same way. Still have to learn the spells over time, the level just dictates what you can possibly learn.
i agree with tridus... if to win with magic or even cast fantastic spells you need to mana horde throught the game you might as well be a gimp becuase its true you wont get to do jack if the other guy who did use his mana 200 turns earlier to his advantage will be knocking down your towns way before you can snap your fingers.
also if mana will be slow to accumulate no point in going down that road to victory might as well use wataver crap you get per turn to augment your armies/champions to win by military conquest.
anycase i will give the benefit of doubt to seeing the beta game but im sure the numbers will have to be adjusted for more fluid mana use if not this game will play out same as last. create armies and steamroll
Currently each school has one or two tactical spells per level.
I would like to see more tactical spells can really influence the battle by doing damage, summoning creatures, changing the terrain or altering the dynamics of the battle in dramatic ways.
Example of spells that dramatically affect the field of battle.
The following spells reduce the line of sight and attack range for all units making battles less predictable and negating the advantages of ranged attacks.
Darkness - LOS & Attack Range: Reduced to 1 - Duration: 1 turn per caster levelForest Fire- LOS & Attack Range: Reduced to 3 - Duration: Entire battle + Forest Tiles are engulfed in flamesDownpour - LOS & Attack Range: Reduced to 2 - Duration: 1 turn + Dispels Forest FireField of Boulders - 25% of battlefield is impassible terrain.
Darkness
Darkness (tactical) - The battlefield is covered in darkness, the attack range and line of sight for all units; friend and foe, is reduced to 1 tile for one turn per caster level. Can be dispelled by Light (Light)
Darkvision (tactical) - Selected unit's line of sight and attack range is not affected by Darkness or Forest Fire.
Fire
Forest Fire (tactical) - All forest tiles are engulfed in flames for the duration of the battle. Any unit entering such a title suffers damage. The smoke from these flames gradually reduce the line of sight and attack range for all units; friend and foe, to 3 tiles for the duration of the battle. Can be dispelled by Downpour (Water)
Water
Downpour (tactical) - Dispels Forest Fire, reduces line of sight and attack range of all units to two tiles; friend and foe, for 1 turn.
Earth
Field of Boulders (tactical) - Boulders rise from the ground rendering 25% of unoccupied titles impassible and giving defenders new defensive positions.
@noobshot
I agree with Tridus that it is not a good strategy, only that it should be one that is available. The original comment I responded to was that there should be some type of cap put on how much mana some could accumulate. Some else seconded the opinion that they could cast 13 volcanoes and then just end the game. My point was that if that is the strategy they want to use, the game should not limit them.
There are any number times I played MoM and waited for a bigger spell instead of casting the one I just got. A person that can cast 13 volcanoes in sequence is basically toying with the enemy sovereign and probably could have just killed them any time they wanted. They just happened to want to kill them with volcanoes. The game should not limit my fun---(Insert crazy evil laugh here).
***Edit*** sorry, I forgot to insert my evil laugh again.
I figured I would come across as a fan boy, but I don't necessarily consider myself in that category. I am a professional software developer, so maybe that puts me in a different mindset when it comes to communication with the developers.
In any case, I think that whether you like or dislike a piece of software you can choose to be respectful to those that are creating it. I think a lot people are very rude/demanding on forums sometimes, just assuming that it's the internet and so there is not really a person on the other side of the screen, and if someone calls you on it, you can just say "I was just giving my opinion, that's what forums are for right?".
I guess I am just asking that people give their opinion in a more polite way. I really don't mind if your opinion is that the game is horrible. That is fine with me if you think that, but don't express it as though Derek/Brad/Cari/Scott/etc. are trying to ruin your life or sell you a lemon of a game. They are real people that care a lot more about the game than you probably do, and they want it to be good. If the game is just not your type of game, fair enough, give specific feedback and reasons for your dislike. If you want it to be better, then give specific examples and move on. I think a lot of folks in this thread have given good feedback, however, I was simply surprised at how negative it was.
I think people forget there are real people that read these messages, and I adamantly disagree that WoM would have been a better game had all the people complaining about it had their full say last summer. It would have resulted in the same game, but a loss of trust/openess with the community. The game was what it was because of design decisions and engine limitations (as has been hashed over by Frogboy many times).
</soap box>
I really wasn't calling out anyone specifically, I just had read the whole thread and it was really a negative feeling that came across. I can only imagine what the team felt when they read it. I was just hoping people would be a bit more positive.
I agree that spells should be affected by attributes. I want to see Intelligence play a bigger role in spell casting (as well as constitution or strength in summoning spells). I want to see more summoning spells, attribute affecting spells, special ability granting spells, etc. so don't think that I believe this game to be perfect in any way. I just choose to see what progress has been made and to acknowledge it while giving my feedback.
I hope you don't think me rude and disrespectful for disagreeing with you. The game was bad because they chose to release it for a specific sales window even though the game was not complete. They knew the game was bad but did not want to wait until February to release it, which was the next window.
And being a professional software developer gives you no more insight into politeness than the rest of us. My experience working with programmers has shown the opposite to be true. Most of the conversation in this thread is primarily speculating about mechanics or giving an opinion about the spell book that was posted on the public forum for us to discuss. Some of the comments are negative, but there is usually a reason why the person feels that way. If you would look, most the comments in the thread are neutral or positive though.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
