I've got some ideas for limiting how powerful enchant kits can make items...

https://forums.elementalgame.com/370956

I agree that an earth element would be nice. Does anyone else think it would be cool to- rather than spells that directly affect units. i.e. giant strength, hardened armor- have defensive spells that affect the terrain and provide defense that way? i.e: rock walls that jut from the ground (to protect against archers) stalagmite barricades (to protect against charging units- with a well timed spell cast you could catch some charging calvary unaware  ). While I think its probably taken a backseat, I remember Frogboy mentioning that they planned to use X-com as inspiration, and with as important as cover was in that game, it would have been neat to make a wall of earth appear to cover my men  

Overall, I think "mystical" should be changed to "arcane", or have "mystical" split into "holy" and "unholy" (which by the post, i would have to assume was Frogboy's intention anyways) but at this point i think it truly doesn't matter, most important thing right now is the mechanics, and im not sure how much i agree with "kits". id prefer more of an item enchantment/creation similar to unit creation- but that might be waay too much micromanagement... so i look forward to testing it out.

I see that many players are wishing for magical damage types to be strongly aligned with the four mana types. Suggesting renaming Lightning to Air damage is part of that.

I would strongly disagree any such choice, as it would push the magical system in the trap where the only differences between the mana types are which damage types they deal.

So, I hope that the magical damage types are available from different mana types. For example, cold damage makes as much sense coming from Water (ex: Ice Bolt) than coming from Air (ex: Chilling Wind). AoW2 (and I assume AoW:SM too) was like that, with some damage types available from different schools.

I completely agree with a weapons triangle for mundane damage types. I would also prefer mundane damage types be called physical or material damage. 

I think the damage types should only be aligned with mana types in so far as the spell effects make sense.  Sure, an "Air" mage could cast lightning storm.  So, perhaps, could a "Death" mage (though perhaps at greater cost).

We can probably avoid the purist rock-paper-scissors by distinguishing damage types in other ways.  Mystic damage could be just plain rare and expensive.  Everyone will want to grab an elemental damage type, but they'll always worry someone has a decent mystic spell up their sleeve, and will wonder if they should invest the (significant) resources to defend against it.  Fire could cause certain creatures to take a morale check (e.g. cavalry, bear cavalry).  Lightning could have less accuracy, with the possibiity of not hitting the exact target planned.  Or, defense against lightning may reflect it back at the caster, unlike the other elements.

You get the idea.  This allows us to have the stroke, counter-stroke system without a rock-paper-scissors mentality.  If you and I both come to a fight without defenses for each others magics, it just becomes a bloodbath.  Which, perhaps, is okay.

I agree. I would prefer not limiting it to the four elements...White/Black magic or Holy/Unholy tossed into the mix makes for lots of variation (and fun!) although it is a lot more work! I know I keep beating the same old drum, (and it is your game!) but the more MOM-like the more I will enjoy it. I think that's why a lot of us showed up here at the beginning.

Keep up the good work!

You have to keep in mind, I loved MoM, but MoM did not have the extreme customization that EWAM will have.  That means the more catagories you make, the more difficult it is to make/enchant counters.  If you got 6, 7, even 8 attack types, is anyone really going to play defensive whack-a-mole to make enchantments for all the types?  You just could not do it, and players would just be forced to go all out offence in the end.

A possibility would be groups of effects all placed in on "element", like Fire (lava), Acid, poison and earth spells/enchantments under an "Earth" catagory.  Wind/Lightining/cold under "Air".  All types of buffs, debuffs, healing and mind spells (like sleep, confuse ect) under "Spirit".  And then the unbrella catagory for all the rest "mystical".  Just an idea, but, I can deal with 4 catagories vs defences reguardless of how many spells are in each catagorey, maybe 5 at most  (life/death instead of just Spirit), but more is just sounds like it will turn into a shell game.

We have four elements: fire, water, air and earth. With Life/Death as an extra. If we have so many is because they are different. It wouldn't make sense to have water and fire if they were to do the same. So they are different and they should work differently, be it at battle or out of battle. Each should have a role and be meaningfull.

I understand the need for simplicity in this system. And it's not a simplicity I don't like. We could understand it as "child magic" in which anything is possible if the author says it. Those "kits" could be understood as binding some elemental spirits to the weapons, or maybe change the elemental balance of the weapon without "breaking it". But if we take that idea, those types of damage... well, they could be assumed as the standards in Elemental's world but in theory we should be able to access to fire damage, water damage, air damage, earth damage, ice damage, acid damage, lighting damage, lava damage, dust damage... It would be a matter of mixing elements in the adecuate proportions to create new kits (lighting being fire + air, lava being fire + earth, for example). But as a limitation "in character" for Elemental campaign, I can accept it.

But I wonder how the system is going to be. Will weapons be just a cosmetic thing? Will they have some differences even if small? I always liked the idea of how weapons are "better aligned" to use some elements: fan = air, hammer = earth, spear = water, sword = fire. Yes, the fan can be barely be considered a weapon and at best used to deflect some light attacks but that is beside the point now.

When talking about damage type, notice that we haven't being told the sources of such damage types. I hope it's not just Fireball, (Water/Ice)ball, Earthball... Airball? Anyhow, damage types should be: mundane (non magical), fire, earth, water, air, life/death (energy? life force? akasha?). With those types you cover all the possible sources no matter their form/use. Flame Arrow Spell? Ok, fire damage source. Sword trough the guts? Eww, mundane source there. Flaming sword through the guts? Ooook, that's some fire and mundane sources, not sure of how the proportions would work or if all damage should be considered of both types. Chain Lighting? That's fire and air sources (according to my previous example) and easier to consider than the previous example of the flaming sword.

Man, I don't even know if I'll be able to create hybrids. But I hope so. It's just a spell with more than one element attribute. We could even name them ourselves as we create them. And as long as they count as their individual elements for protections, it's fine.

So... sources.

• Fire: Offensive element by nature. Flame Arrow, Fireball, Firestorm, Breath of Fire... Not so suited to defend and the fire spells used for such are offensive in nature (a Fire Wall might not block as well as an Earth Wall, but surely hurts more). This element has the advantage of damaging the target over time.
• Earth: Raising earth pikes from the ground to impale your enemies, bowling with giant rocks against enemy formations... Earth is a more balanced element than fire in the offensive/defensive camps. Those earth pikes you raised to impale enemy soldiers? Congrats, you raised a wall too. And altough it might not do damage over time (by itself?), surely it has some nice area damage posibilities.
• Water: To use it in an offensive way, it should require more skill than with Fire or Earth. Unless you go the brute way and start using columns of water, or you are in an area with lots of water like a sea. Or Ice could be an option as long as Fire is not strong enouhg in the area. But the true strength in water damage should be things like Drown or Dehydrate. Most common uses could be to slow enemies, hasten allies, paralize (no need to be ice)... It'd be more of a support element and if I don't include healing in this element is because someone added life/magic.
• Air: This is a control element. Damage? Sure, if you summon an Air Elemental. By itself? I don't see it so much with some exceptions (Suffocate!!!). Use it to deflect arrows, to give arrows more strength when piercing armours, knock back enemies (go fan, go!)... Summon a hurricane in the enemy lines and watch not only how the cannot move (well, that uncontrolled flying doesn't count) or attack, but how they recieve (possible massive) mundane damage from the fall. And even if they weren't hurt (too much), have fun watching them trying to reorganize. If there were flying units, this would be the element that would decide sky battles tough.

Altough every element can be used as a source of damage, the sources should be different and "in character". And simply put, some elements should have more spells to do damage as others. (Yeah, everybody knows that but I like to mention the obvious) I think that Fire should excel at battle; Earth can shine in battle but should have an imporant role in kingdom/empire building; Water could help a lot in kingdom/empire building and be a great asset in armies' deployment; Air is just too sweet in anything related to spies/diplomacy.

Surely there is something I forget. As usual. Missed to write walls of text.

Excellent post, Wintersong. Great idea's there. This is exactly why I'm hoping to have access to the "Custom Spell Creator" from In Game so we can use it as we play.

Which is why I've proposed the four classical elements. You can stuff everything logically (more or less) in those 4 elemental categories, which is why they've been used for quite a long time in the past.

Acid and poison would fall under earth.

Usually mind control spells fall under the water categorie. (Human body consists of lots of water.) While a rage or berserker spell would fall under fire (connection is obvious I guess) for example

I disagree. Having damage aligned with certain Elements only strengthens the connection and makes it easier to explain, in no way does it limit the types and amount of spells available.

Let's take mind spells for example. Water (blue) mind spells would be about controlling, fire (red) about anger and berserkering, earth (green) would protect against other mind spells and air could offer an increase in morale.

Now lets talk about magic damages. Air could offer fast attack spells, with bonus against low armoured targets. Fire would have its signatory explosive and burning spells. Water would offer freezing ice with movement penalties and Earth would be spikes from the ground and crushing stones falling from the sky.

Those are just some examples, that show that you can have very different spells with unique effects fit very nicely in those 4 categories. (And the fifth categories for oddball spells and the white and black mana spells.)

Umm hello have you ever heard of lightning bolt? A basic high-powered spell in most Fantasy settings. Having an electrical Sword is not that far of a stretch.

Well many of us really like damage types (and still play Galciv 2)  So please add as many typs as you can and allow us to mod more types as well as adjust types currently in the game.

Yes Wintersongt great post. Spells can be organized into element schools but that does not necessarily mean they do a certain damage type.

For instance many earht spells would do physical damage, but there might be a water spell "Ice bolt" that also does physical damage. or a spell bllizzard that does cold damage. or there could be utility spells that do not do damage but have other types of effects.

I agree, great post Wintersong! (especially your earth section )

I don't have anything to add, just that I hope the devs put as much thought into the effects that each element will have on the world map and tactical battles as you have here.

Yup, very good post Wintersong. When I wrote my post, I didn't saw yours yet, else I wouldn't have posted.

I think frogboy is going in the right direction. Although I would still prefer more diversity in physical damage types. Really a damage type should be reflective of a fundamentaly different form of damage. I like GURPS in this way when it comes to damage types. The source of the damage does not define the damage being done.

Getting punched in the face does impact damage. So does getting hit by a rock. Does it matter if the rock way thrown by a troll or magically propelled to that velocity? I don't believe so. And armor should protect the same amount either way.

In the same grain lightening does not do lightening damage. It does burning damage because it greatly raises the temperature of a substance as it passes through, although it should have the special effect of potentially disrupting vital systems in living beings.

Potentially air magic could do physical damage. But what if you rapidly vibrate the air molecules causing friction and thus burining damage?

Damage types I think would be good. And keep in mind that all damage types (except maybe the unexplained mystical) are really physical damage types.

Mundane Physical Damage caused by the application of force: could be separated into

Blunt - Piercing - Cutting

Burning Damage

Freezing Damage

Corrosion Damage (Done by acid or application of force on a molecular level air, earth, and water could have ways of doing this)

Poison Damage (Caused over time by a substance that must make it's way inside an opponent and distupts them chemically)

Radiation Damage (Caused by high energy particles probably quite rare in a fantasy setting)

Mystical/Arcane/Magical Damage and all it's subtypes

I like to think of Air moreso in terms of Lightning + Wind possibilities. The way I see Lightning vs Fire is that Fireballs/Firestorms are much larger and used for killing many, many enemies. Whereas Chain-Lightning is far more powerful (higher attack) although can only hit connected units, and only a limited finite number, say 20 people, jumping from one to the other, maybe it cannot "criss-cross" and therefore rarely be able to wipe a whole unit in one go, however tending to fry the most powerful/leveled soldiers within the unit. Fire (wide area of effect, less damage), Lightning (more focused area, much higher damage) in addition Fire could have firewalls and fire-elementals, while Air could have hurricanes, arrow buffs/debuffs, flying unit buffs/debuffs, Sail-boat buff/debuffs, as well as Dust-Tornadoes and Water-Cyclones and Fire-Tornadoes (turn your(any) burning unit into a fire-tornado to attack the enemy).

Water can be primarily a Support/Terraform ability ... although I think it would be nice to flood parts of the battlefield by raising the groundwater, as well as filling the air/atmosphere with moisture by calling Rainclouds over the battlefield. The presence of lots of water on the battlefield (through terraform spells) can weaken fire-spells (as such a "defensive" mechanism vs fire) as well as allow further water/ice abilities, and cross-over spells like Water-Cyclone.

Either the amount of "water saturation" you can achieve, its Mana Cost, or both, should heavily depend on terrain type.

Water-based terraforming should be most effective in Coast/Jungle, near as effective in grassland/floodplains, and to be ineffective/less effective in the desert (although cold places should allow for ice spells automatically (without presence of water), just not the pure "water" spells)

By flooding parts of the battlefield you can create obstacles for the enemy, slowing them down, and you can also use the "body magic" sphere of Water to buff and heal your units. Most Ice spells would either freeze units for x turns (as well as dealing initial damage) or simple damage spells like flying ice-cycles, as well as defensive measures like "Ice Wall" which can block enemy units as well as cause initial damage to any enemy units nearby the wall when it was first created.

Also a "Blizzard" spell to slow enemy units over a wide area and give very small amount of damage over time (a wider and less powerful version of Firestorm, also Firestorm doesn't slow down units)

Earth spells could actually terraform the terrain, Raise hills from nothing, bring down other hills, causing Earthquakes (any area of effect you want "click and drag" all units in the area are unable to move for x turns and recieve small amount of damage, area of effect alters mana cost), as extreme as Raising a Volcanoe. Other, defensive measures could include walls of earth, and an experimental and possibly overpowered spell called "submerge" which you would select as many of your soldiers as possible, to either attempt to dodge enemy spells or the side-effects of your own Volcanoe spell, and for a certain amount of time (your choosing?) your units are "safe" underground, although they still recieve any over-time effects as normal, and no spells can be cast upon them (unless its mystical spells I suppose). The one drawback to this spell is that eventually you have to surface (possibly a mana-drain situation) and you would not want to be out-flanked once that occurs. I think primary use of submerge would be to dodge an opponents Volcanoe, FireStorm, Blizzard, or Hurricane spells.

earlier I meantioned Water spells to Saturate the playing field via either Rainclouds or Groundwater. Well, I think an Earth-spell should be able to eliminate ground-water saturation, and an Air-spell should be able to eliminate Raincloud saturation.

Tasunke:

Somehow, every element could be used to control the terrain. It would depend of the terrain but in theory it could be possible. For me the best one is Earth. Why? Well, most of your battles will be land based. If your troops don't have solid ground to fight on... Raising a patch of land so your archers have higher ground to fire from, the already mentioned stone pikes that appart from killing and mining the morale can also serve as walls that block and redirect traffic, lower the terrain where the enemy is so they have to charge upwards while at the same time turn that ground into sand, earthqueakes that can shatter the land massively reconfiguring the battlefield (and maybe swallowing some soldiers in the process),.. End of game battles with Earth specialist could be epic.

Water? I agree that it's also good in terrain control but not at the same level and versatility of Earth. Flooding the battlefield sounds cool as some heavy rain to reduce movility and visibility (on everybody or just the enemy if you can shape that heavy rain). To use rivers as cheap water walls or make the waters break so your troops can pass unhindered... Yeah, Water can be very interesting as terrain control tool if the terrain allows it.

I don't see Air really as damage dealer by itself (Suffocate could be like "Die or receive damage" type of spell) but seems to offer itself quite well to be mixed with other elements to create some barbarities (like a huge storm with heavy rain, strong winds and lighting!!).

Damage types aren't so bad IF there's some different kind of damage effects : temporary damage (like in UFO afterlight), lengthening effects (like poison or shock or etc.)

So the defenses would prevent damage or soften it or lessen the bad effects that comes with it (like fire that would burn over time, or water that would make you heavier or wind that would reduce armor or etc.)

Damage types are good as long as they open tactical possibilities. The 3 types from gal civ2 weren't like that at all.

Damage effects should be separate from the actual damage type. Although certain damage effects should have an affinity with certain types and certain types my prevent some damage effects. Like poison (damage effect) would have a strong affinity to persistant damage and also an affinity to additional crippling effects like paralysis, blindness, weakness, etc.

1. Mystical damage... what!? So no earth damage? What is so bad about it? Can't you just implement the standard 4 elements + Mystical/Aracane one, which would be composed of light/dark spells, depending on being a fallen/'kingdomer'?

2. Is it gonna look like the GalCiv system? For the love of god, don't! At least implement a standard rock-paper-scissors system for all elements.

Legend:
White arrow - advantage
Black arrow - disadvantage

Note: The element in the middle is the Mystical/Arcane magic, which is in balance with all elements.

3. Will there be any more unit attributes? I am talking about: damage, range, initiative, etc.

4. What about special unit trait (vampiric attack, first attack, berzerek, etc.)?

5. Will any type of attack have special added effect (fire causes DoT, water slows for several turns, air paralyzes and ground have a chance of crit)?

I agree with the defensive whack-a-mole/shell game worry. Besides reducing the number of catagories, another thought is having more overlap in defense.

Let's say categories are red, blue, green and black damage.  If there are one-to-one defensive counters then red counter provides 100% defense value against red, 0% against all others. 

However, if red counter provides 100% of its point value against red and 50% vs green or black, then you can have more categories without having to be protected against one damage type and defenseless against all the others.

In the case of multiple counters, pick the best value or have diminshing returns.

Earth would primarily cause physical damage. Life and Death spells would more than likely cause Mystical damage.

Certain Ice and Wind spells would most likely cause physical damage, while other spells would cause Water and Lightning damage.

Pretty much all fire spells would cause fire damage.

I think in addition to causing physical damage, Earth spells can cause terraforming feats, (like Volcano) which could ultimately end up causing fire damage(lava) or water damage(flooded pit).

I think earth magic would also handle the natural element, and the ability to form trees, vines, and the like should be handled within this sphere ... maybe even mesmerizing animals as well.

I also agree with the "whack-a-mole" point.  If the damage enchantments don't do anything other than add a certain type of magic damage, than having multiple damage types is pretty much going to lead to a whack-a-mole.  The more types there are, the worse this will be.

The only way I can see damage types being useful is if the different types of magic have different sorts of effects, both in terms of large scale spells and and in terms of enchantments, and these differences can be counter with different fighting tactics and non-magic design.   The more types there are, however, the less thwey will be able ot be diffrentiated.  I certainly do not want a bunch of damage types included just because they were in previous games.

Also, to people arguing that the magic types are named incorrectly:  The backstory can be used to justify anything needed.  In one game, electrical damage might be associated with stuns, in another, single target damage, in another, wide area damage, the same applies to other types.  Different damage types will also be associated with the same effect (So hurricanes might do cold based damage in one game, physical in another, wind in a third, etc.).  so in terms of what the damage types are.

I think this is acceptable as long as there is some way of modifying "Mundane" in various ways, such as

• armor piercing
• hardened armor (resistance to armor piercing)
• differences between melee, missile, and siege flags

etc.