I think it would be really beneficial if city enchants did NOT scale with the essence in target city, so a city enchant in a 1 essence city is worth the same as a city enchant in a 3 essence city.
This will also help make grain and materials a noteworthy resource once again, instead of everything being about essenceI don't mind essence being important, but essence being so awesome that grain and material takes a step back and become next to worthless is really sad.
Another idea by Madcatter is to let city enchants scale per level, I will put initial thoughts up on this (plus clean up a little, to remove ideas when two different ideas represent the same concept.)
I will come with suggestions for what the spells should do when they are not scaling with essence:
Unit Boosters:"Aura of Grace: When enchanted city trains a unit, the trained unit gains +2 initiative" - Would be awesome if it was given a +2 initiative trait also, so we can see what units was trained with this buff more easily. - Trained units gain +1 initiative per city level."Aura of Vitality: When enchanted city trains a unit, the trained unit gains a +4 HP" - Would also be awesome if this was given as a +4 HP trait, so we can see what units was trained with this buff. - Trained units start with 1 more HP, +1 per city level. (level 1 city boosts with 2 hp, level 2 city boosts with 3 hp)
Economy Boosters:"Avarice: Enchanted city produces +3 gildar per season due to the drive to make money" - or percentage bonus "Avarice: Enchanted city produces +20% more gildar each season due to the drive to make money" - Enchated city produces +1 gildar per season for each city level."Enchanted Hammers: Enchanted city gains +1 Material" - Alternate version could give +10 production. - "Enchanted city gains +10 production due to the population working tirelessly" - Enchanted city gains +4 production for each city level."Inspiration: Enchanted city produces +2 research per season" - or a percentage bonus "Inspiration: Enchanted city produces +20% more research each season due to a rush of inspiration affecting the scholars" - Enchanted city produces +1 research per season, per city level."Meditation: Enchanted city produces +3 mana per season" - or a percentage bonus "Meditation: Enchanted city produces +25% more mana each season due to the native channeler's in the city focusing the magical energies into raw mana" - Enchanted city produces +1 mana per season for each city level."Nature's Bounty: Enchanted city gains +1 Grain" - Nature's Bounty: Enchanted city gains +60 food, due to the magical energies affecting and reinforcing crop growth - Enchanted city produces +30 food for each city level. - Enchanted city produces +1 grain for each level."Gentle Rain: Enchanted city produces +25% more food due to the magical energies controlling the weather, to create the perfect farming environment" - Enchanted city produces +20% more food for each city level."Pit of Madness: Enchanted city produces +3 research per season, but suffers a -1 growth per season, and units attacking enchanted city will be struck with fear" - Enchanted city produces a +1 research per season for each city level, but suffers a -1 growth per season, and units attacking the city will be struck with fear."Sovereigns Call: Enchanted city receives +1 growth" - alternate: Enchanted city receives +2 growth, but a 10% penalty to production due to resources needed to build new houses. - Enchanted city gains +1 growth for each city level - Another thing you could do is to make this percentage based, to keep prestige being an important attribute, instead of being made useless by a spell taking its job. - Enchanted city gets a +50% bonus to growth. - Enchanted city gets a +20% bonus to growth for each city level.
Other:"Blood Sigil: When enchanted city is attacked, all defending units will be under the influence of Berserk (Lose 1 hp per turn, but gain +3 attack), and attacking units will be under the influence of Wither (-3 attack)" - No real change to this, re-described it to my own liking I don't have access to the other spells right now, so please type them up below with description and I can give a suggestion to the balance.I can also work for some more interesting descriptions if there is a need for this Hope you guys agree though
Sincerely~ Kongdej
I've been thinking along the same lines while playing.
Either that or make essence more rare.
I wouldn't be opposed although some of these seem rather weak. The +1 X from Enchanted Hammers or Nature's Bounty seems spot on to me though with regards to opportunity cost.
If essence is too rare, it makes an essence owning faction almost OP. There needs to be another way to control essence exploitation. Maybe connect it to research somehow. If you ZOC and develop more essence than your sovereign can control, you risk random monster spawning like you would in Black Library's Warhammer universe when dealing with Chaos?
I would love to hear what seems weak.
Avarice, Meditation, Inspiration, and Sovereign's Call. Just up the first three by +1 each should be at least decent, and make Sovereign's +1 Growth without penalty. They only got crazy due to being able to multiply (especially with Oracle/Scrying Pool), but they need to be at least decent enough to justify the slot (and Essence mechanics) now.
Either that or switch to a percentage boost so Essence can contribute more during the late game, because if we're working with flat then I'm just not seeing much advantage to taking high Essence tiles once cities are decently built, outside of unit improvements and Conclaves. At least +1 Material/Grain will scale alongside your overall advancement as you construct new buildings and go along the Tech Trees.
Hm, I guess we just don't agree on the matter, the benefit from both Avarice, Meditation, and Inspiration is really powerful, at the moment these are the spells I most frequently use due to the powerbase, two of these can even run with high taxes due to unrest not penalizing gold income and mana income.Inspiration is way too important in the current game to progress research and is one of the reasons that building a city in a zero essence square is worthless, you gain huge amounts of research from inspiration, that is why I think a +1 research per turn is a good balance due to it being affected by all the different benefits in the Conclave city selection, but also any bonus to research will set you in front of the other players not using the same benefit, take a look at the current system, in what city is a +1 bonus to research a marginal bonus?
That said, I respect your opinion, and I will welcome the ideas.
Also you can make inspiration, avarice, meditation, sovereigns call, and similar spells scale with magic research.
I think the system is working fine, we just need to balance the numbers. Growth is way too high in the game right now. Generally about 50% comes from Sov's Call and 45% comes from Prestige. Towns are not doing enough growth, Sov's Call is doing too much. So cut Sov's call down to +.5 Growth per Essence. Inspiration could be fine as +1 per Essence as long as the new enchantments can outclass that spell. Technology should give us better enchantments than the ones we start with. We should be canceling weak early game spells in favor of new ones. Currently the best spell is Enchanted Hammers. It can give you crazy amounts of Production. It needs to be Earth 2. There should be a new enchantment in the tech tree for a production boost. Grain bonuses are a good upgrade most of the time. It forces you to lose an early game enchantment in order to level up that city. I also like that Pariden can specialize in not needing to choose. Works well as a faction power. The major problem with balance is that Essence increases in power by building a faction building and leveling a city. Grain and Materials upgrade by research. The two methods will never really be balanced until Essence begins to also rely on technology.
Even lategame I always pick essence before grain or materials, IMO the enchantments are way too powerful compared to a meagre bonus from grain and production.The more essence you have, the more powerful each point of essence becomes, this is a problem IMO, it does not work like this with grain or materials, only essence, and essence gives everything, both gives tons of grain, tons of production, and is the main ingredient to have high research.
I have to say I personally think a material is fucking great even compared to a point of essence. If there's a forest nearby, and a river, even better. Of course, essence grows exponentially in power - so a city with 2 essence gains 4 times as much from essence as a city with 1 essence does. So any city with 2 essence, or any conclave, always take the essence.
Guys can you please stop calling for spells to be nerfed - I personally think most the city enchants are fine although maybe inspiration should be unlocked in an early magic tech so it doesnt come into play right from turn one - thats the only nerf I would suggest. Essence is pretty uncommon in my games and 2 essence sites tend to be hard to find so they're pretty special when I do find one. I currently think essence and city enchants are well balanced at the moment.
I think essence just needs to be more common and usable to all the factions, thus making Pariden's faction building good but not godly. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Things like Tower of Dominion could give essence. Or so could Temples of Essence. Oracle could be bumped to +2 essence on city level up.
So it's not as godly. You're not doomed if your second city has 1 or 0.
You can still win without essence in your starting city although it's always nice to have
True materials are slightly important too, I usually look for a 3 material spot with as much essence as possible, ignoring grain or further materials. 3 tends to be enough to get proper troop production, leftover essence tends to boost units trained exponentially...or economy so I can have more troops
No. I want a well balanced game with many interesting and competing choices. I don't want Essence everywhere and I don't want it to be the most powerful resource in the game. Essence as a mechanic is great, but Fortresses and Towns are dwarfed by Conclaves due to Essence. Essence is fine, but the spells on turn one need to be weaker. The spells from Sorcery and Arcane Mastery need to be stronger. Otherwise the game should be renamed "Elemental: Random Essence Simulator 2000."
I try to bring up these subjects about the city enchant spells to bring a sense of balance into the game, so agree with Sean here.
That said, yes I can win without essence too, but that have nothing to do with balance, but something to do with a confused AI.
I just found hard too easy, using a trog faction, and a 2 essence city as my unit producing city, (+4 initiative to all the Trog troops).Its just not a challenge when I can take advantage of a silly balance, and the AI plays the game as the game is supposed to feel.
This. I have no problem with 1 essence but cities with 2 are actually worth 4, and cities with 3 are actually 9. Since 3 is not that hard to get because of Oracles having 2 essence in cities becomes very important. If you play as Paridan you can get 4 essence easily which is as good as 16 single essences. It is even possible to get 5 as Paridan for a multiplicative effect of 25, ridiculous. Not to mention essence easily completely replaces grain because of the Nature's Bounty spell.
The random start generator seems a bit buggy at times - one game it started me in a desert with no tiles to settle at all. On other occasions I'll get just 2 or 3 tiles to settle on. This is not a failing of essence it is the map generator not balancing player starts well.
But normally if I don't get essence I'll get something else to compensate. I find for every 5 or 6 city sites 1 will have two essence, which is fine as that becomes my conclave/fortress. Essence is supposed to be good but it's not decisive. I think inspiration as a starting spell is too strong though so they should make it available in the 2nd column of the magic tree. Essence will be fine then.
Some of you seem too keen to call for the nerf hammer when it's not really necessary
1) How often do you see a 3 essence build site? - I've only seen these tiles when they are reclaimed from wildlands - i.e. late game.
2) To get an oracle (which provides 1 essence) you need to get a conclave to level 3 - i.e. mid game
3) Scrying pools - OK these might be a little too easy to get at the moment - maybe they need to be pushed a little further along the tech tree
The multiplier effect is actually kind of fun - all they need to do is make it a little trickier to get multipliers on cities
its not a nerf hammer for 1 essence cities, its a hope to rebalance the essence system so low essence is still worth as much as high essence, jeeses chill out, I get that you don't like the idea, I cannot understand why.
The game is lacking balance so much, that is what being in beta means... (ok not exactly, but balance have not been a main focus so far), and you have to nerf some things, and boost other things to get a really well-balanced game, and honestly I have tried games before, and left them due to balance making them almost unplayable for more than just looking at the concept.
Exactly.
Value of 1 essence = 1 essence
Value of 2 essence = 4 * 1 essence
Value of 3 essence = 9 * 1 essence
Value of 4 essence = 16 * 1 essence
@ Kongdej
I'm chilled, but I think it would be better to train the AI to use the present system, plus make it really hard to get multipliers beyond 3. Also maybe some tweaking needs to be done to the random start generator.
I propose they make the Oracle a level 5 conclave upgrade and they move scrying pools halfway down the magic tree. That would make the exponential multipliers late game where they belong
That might work but the difference between spots with 1 and 2 essence would still be huge, and the occasional spot with 3 would still be ridiculous. You could still make city enchantments increase with each essence on a city but instead have a base and a small multiple instead of 1 huge multiple.
I also like the idea of city enchantments multiplying existing resources instead of adding to and replacing them. Where X is the amount of essence.
Inspiration could be +1 Research + (10*X)% to Research.
That way enchantments don't replace buildings simply improve them.
IF essence was a bit more common to get hold of than it is now, there shouldn't be a problem. Outside of outliers where the game can make awful starts.
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