Hello, my view is that overland spells are a visible and tangible indication of a sovereign's personality. You could be using this more effectively, IMHO. I raise these suggestions because I see how you've tried to create leaders with different personalities, and think this would help you.
I use Master of Magic as an example: in a game of MoM, you'd know that Jafar was nearby even if you hadn't encountered him yet, because you'd see his sorcery spells going off at the edges of your fog of war. On the other hand you'd know you were facing a militaristic foe because they'd create more units but cast fewer spells.
In the examples above, the former relies on visual displays of magic: i.e. AI sovereigns should not be shy to cast overland spells and should do so more often. The very spells they can cast will indicate what you're up against. The latter might be linked to starting attributes: if a leader has 'warlord' attribute, then they'll rather spend money on building armies than city improvements, for example.
This game is sure to be a classic, but I would like to see a lot more overland / global magic being used by sovereigns (e.g. using tornadoes on your army, or raising mountains if your city is near their border and they've got no city in the vicinity, etc). There are few better reasons to declare war on an opponent than the fact that you're spending all your mana flattening the mountains he's raising nearby; or continually dispelling his Curse City spells. This may require more custom code that determines how sovereigns should use specific spells, which might be an addition to your generic spell-casting AI currently in place (if that's indeed how you've coded it).
Also please bear in mind I've only played on Medium so far (with a few AI's set to 'challenging' per scenario), so there may be more to discover on these aspects; but the challenging enemies I had didn't seem to use overland magic much, hence this post.
edit: I've also seen posts by other people on this board saying they'd like to see your magic system 'go big' - powerful global enchantments; a complex dispel/disenchant/interrupt/counter-spell system; multi-turn casting times - and I think that I really agree with their views.
I think this is a terrific idea!
What I see is "Moar magic" and make magic more personal to each different sovereign...? (meaby letting them start on level 3 magic or so?)
Also making "proper" summons and magical aura's that is clearly visual would be nice.
Sincerely~ Kongdej
I miss the summoning game from MoM...
Me too! Summoning was a great part of MoM. There are too many heros anyway IMHO. Most of my armies are filled with heroes with a few normal troop types as well. This is somehow strange compared to other games of this type where heroes are relatively scarce.
EDIT: I would suggest to put a bigger focus on "normal" troop types and/or summoned creatures with a few heroes in between which have cool powers, can be equipped, etc.
edit: nvm
I starting to wonder if the "moar magic" types are in the distinct minority here.
My guess is not many people play MOM or even AoW as opposed to mainly CIV 4/5 only players , so they quite happy with the current magic system.
Oh well..
Actually summons were fairly weak compared to Heroes in MOM unless you got them early. But still fun and useful in some cases.
But it was nice to see beta 3 add a few summons and 1 more dispel city enchantment spell. Still I wish they devoted 1 patch to just beefing up the magic system. For a game that is supposed to be about fantasy the amount of obsession on economies and "tech" etc is crazy high compared to on the magic system.
This is just me, but for the lack of summons, the magic system feels very polished already.
Depends on what you mean by "magic system" i suppose.
Not weak compared to the first few heroes, mostly because within turn 40 you can handle upkeeping around 5 sprites or hellhounds
In Elemental I have to wait to turn 40 to upkeep a simple militia...
The magic system is quite robust, and it's been well-coded, that much is clear. What we're suggesting is more magical drama, more counterspell/interrupt/dispel/disenchant mechanics, and more visible overland spell-casting.
True as i said they were strong relatively early compared to most units you could build and champions werent that powerful . but weak mid-and late game when you had god-like champions running around or champion hammerhands/paladins/slingers etc...
If that's doable within the system, then yeah it's fine.
Well it is the early game part I miss, some action, they feel balanced for mid-game too because they don't overpower everything automatically, put you can spew out 3 hellhounds to assist your 3 archers and 1 hero around.
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Bad flu mmosheepMight wanna go to the doctor with that
Personaly I think that the current magic system is on par with that of AoW, the only thing that I'm missing is the overland spells. AoW had more overland spells. Besides the overland spells, FE has got almost as many spells as AoW. I'm kind of liking the city spells we got in FE it adds some dept. Me really like Meditation and "the tech spell" combo, +2 tech and +10% research for -10% construction and 5 mana to cast! What I really liked in AoW:2 where the "domain" spells like Damnation and the like. Summons also could get a boost, but then again, I like the current early game.
I think its a bit too random, and bumpy...and rather slow.
I do not share your opinion. I think that AoW's spells were more balanced which is not the case with FE spells right now IMHO.
MOM spells > AOW > FE
I'm not sure how i feel about getting most spells through hero-upgrades, yet. In my games so far, it lead to having not just a big ammount of spells quite early (which made them feel less special), they also were mostly the same spells everytime. In MoM and AoW it did really matter what spellpath you choose in the beginning. It effected the entire game and contributed a lot to the replayability.
I could not possibly disagree more.
The magic system lacks choices. It is stagnant and repetitive, and worst of all, it is the opposite of transparent in terms of which schools work together to give you which spells.
It is stable and contains the seeds of a decent magic system, but that's about it.
I also would disagree with Heavenfall for once.
My own opinions about summons is there's not enough variety for a summoner to truly stay a summoner. I have mixed thoughts about the shadow warg, its an okay summon it has no defence though. It's kind of kill or be killed with bandits and their dogs. Harder stuff its a speedbump for the mob coming after you.
I can see not wanting to allow players to have huge overpowered summons. There's got to be something though to take the hits while mage's are casting..
Also regarding the magic system, I agree with what Malsqueek said above. In addition, I think that each element should provide its own array of enchants, summons, and damage dealing spells. Bulk of what magic available is weak.
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