That's right!

And multiple types of mana are more complicated than one type too. But don't worry, they just decided to dumb it down use only one.

I'm waiting for someone to carry this reflexion to his logical term: if there's only one type of mana, why have 4 types of shards?

And soon, I shall get told that multiple types of weapons are more complicated than one, expecially since there is only one damage type. People could get confused choosing between a spearman and a swordsman.

Bah, that's no use getting even more cynical. I prefer to stop before getting rude after someone tells me "Just mod it yourself!"

One species: Human.

One stat (except Channelrs that have a second named Essence): Body (encompasses physical and mental attributes). Used for attack, defense, movement, life...

One close combat weapon: Club.

One ranged combat weapon: Stone.

One kind of armour: Padded.

One type of Magic: Arcane.

One type of Shard: Arcane Crystal.

Buildings: Hut; Farm; Woodcutter (makes clubs too; still wondering how they cut the wood tough); Stone Mine (used for stones too); Hut Deluxe (for Sovereign).

Resources: Food, wood, stone, mana.

Battles last one turn. In fact, only autobattles of one turn.

One Diplomacy option: War.

One music track for the whole game.

One sound effect for the whole game.

One save file only.

Don't forget we need to change the name of the game to "Arcane: War of Magic"  since there will be no elements to Elemental.

So Raven you have already answered your question yourself:

One damage type but different effects and I definitely believe that this will be in the game...

By the way you are in the Beta so just wait for thing to happen and then we can start to argue about the feature is.

I have a lot of trust in Stardock to do it the right way for the mayority of players.

I've been trying to ignore that vexing question ever since I saw the idea of having only one type of mana. But I'm not going to wallow in imaginary worries about it because we should see an initial rollout of the magic system somewhere this coming spring.

This game is still *very* early in development and the idea of multiple mana types was in play during runup to the beta. If the devs don't have something neat under their hats to replace mana types in a way that makes having different shard types meaningful, maybe they will decide to try again at working with mana types.

I thought about that but the title seemed too long and couldn't think of something shorter and corny (cornier?).

The game is called Elemental: War of magic. The last part added as an extra. Elemental. Elements will be there, they are going to have a role. At this point, Stardock is trying things.

You don't need many types of mana. In MtG, why are so valued lands that offer different mana sources in one card? Because it's unfun to have five white cards in your hand and only have swamps in play because of unlucky draw. I don't dislike the idea of different mana types but considering the randomness of Crystals, one type of mana is best ("Yay! I went White Weenie with my Sovereign and only have Fire Crystals that I cannot use!").

Why different crystals? I'd bet for them giving Power Bonuses to spells casts of the same element. So your Fire Spells will be more powerfull the more Fire Crystals you control. Yes, they are going to do Arcane Damage but that's another story and we might still get Elemental Tags or whatever. They might give also bonuses to research spells of the same element. So in the end, to have the "correct· crystals would give you advantages in research and casting, but their lack won't prevent you from casting your spells no matter their element.

And that's a good thing.

Because maybe the mana they produce is tied to your spell knowledge? Because you need a number of them to be able to research or cast something? We can find lots of explanations to that. Or maybe in the end we will have only one shard.

I never said multiple damage spells were more complicated than one single damage spell (which they are, but there, I think they add to the game). You could have tried the weapons comparison if we had slashing, piercing,... types of physical damage, buuuut we only have one. Same for spells now.

I really prefer the way Age of wonders works : if you don't have fire knowledge and control a fire node, then you get 10 mana points. If you have fire knowledge then you get 20 mana points. So you aren't stucked with whatever comes next to you.

Moreover there's a spell that can change the element of node. Maybe they'll put that spell.

I am being a little facetious.  I trust that Stardock will get it right in the end.  Brad is a gamer and wants to create a classic, so I'm not worried that the game won't be fun or worth the money I paid to preorder.  Part of creating that classic is these open discussions about the game concepts and mechanics.  Some people are very sensitive and passionate about their ideas and vision of the game.  I'm pretty easy going, but will poke, vote and make a few points when I get a chance.  Even though there is a bit of conflict on here, it will all help stimulate Stardock's thoughts and help bring about a great game.

Personnally, I would like to see a system that is more divided by the different elements and brings more diversity to the game.  I've played MtG and I understand where you are coming from.  I usually play a mulit-colored deck because it allows you to do more things and have less weaknesses, but you do run into the bad luck of getting mana-screwed sometimes.  That's just the way it goes.  I can accept that in a game like this, as long a balancing is factored in.  As long as there are plenty of spells and effects that use more 'colorless' mana and maybe a pinch of color, it will work out.

This also spurred another thought:  why not get a glimpse of your starting location prior to faction/channeller creation?  that way you can see if there is a certain shard or something else that may force you to play a certain way.  This can also make sense story wise, since your charcter would have emerged from that fire area and then be better with fire spells.

Indeed. I got my answer from the other thread. I'm not worried now in the slightest. I knew there would be some kind of flag system for spells types, I just wanted to make sure they'd use it creatively in damage based spells too. Some times a little clarification goes a long way.

What the heck is wrong with you?  (This isn't even that serious of an insult on it's own, but considering all the other crap you've thrown aro9und I'm not going to explain it further.)

(You can also check earlier in the forums for examples of what I'm talking about.  I'm not going ot explain further, but I'm pretty sure others mostly get what I'm talking about.)

This does come up in some other games as wekll, so definitely could be useful here.  (Depending on testing, of course.)

Spells will require control of shards to cast. Which types of shards and how many of them depend on the spell.

What we decided not to do is make it so that one sits there and builds up "fire mana" through the course of the game since that basically makes the outcome pre-determined.

Seriously, some people need to cool off a bit and wait and see.

And you say that with your Joan of Arc face on...

This thread is funny.

You zap a yeti, he says ooh, spring breeze, nice snow storm!  You zap him with a fireball instead, and his hair catches on fire.  You zap a bleach blonde with a fireball, she turns over to tan the other side.  Stick her in a snow storm and she'll have to invent practical clothing.

Options for achieving this, you do different damage types and have resistance levels for them.  The walking tree is utterly hosed against a fireball, but doesn't really mind getting rained on at all.  You can even have special effects trigger based on the resistance score.

Or, you be a ninny, put twice the work in, and do impractical idiocy, sticking immunities and resitances all over the place, with specific spell lists or spheres of influence.  You make a mess.

You can't really do much if you don't have different damage types, you just end up with clutter trying.  It's practical unless you want generic spells.  A freeze effect applying to a walking popcicle just doesn't make sense.

I'm very cooled off and very patient atm. Sorry for the disruption.

Solar, I am glad you noticed that I wasn't so insulting.   Trust me, I held back.

psychoak, that was a truly beautiful post.   I expect that they will go with the obvious option (the non-ninny option) but they may have to hide it in a black box because some people will feel there is too much depth if the character sheet actually SHOWED states like fire resist, cold resist, etc. I don't pay no never mind, it sounds like at a functional level it will be there, and that's all I really care about.

That can be a very fun system, it works for M:TG.

I think for Elemental it will be a interesting mechanic because it will force the player to expand to be able to cast the more costly/powerful spells. It's conceivable that you'll need to control a good bit of land to have control of a high number of shards.

It would also be cool if control of a shard is something that you can trade for...and also if you can negate or force renegotiation for said control. NM, with NO SARCASM I can see that could get too complicated.

What is nice is this whole argument is tied to semantics. Fire elementals have to resist fireballs just because both of them have the word "fire". If the school with damage spells is called, for example, Chaos (that sounds familiar) and the fireball spell is called doomball (familiar too, not as much but close), or chaos storm or whatever, then suddenly, it makes sense that the fire elemental is damaged by the spell...

Mmm, at least for me, separating spell lists where chaos gets damage spells, life gets buffs, nature gets summons or things like that, looks pretty interesting. Much more than fireball, mudball, natureball, boringball and so on.

Your idea, but you can do lots of things with a generic damage type, because lots of things aren't tied to damage at all.

Common sense and the physical laws of magic...

Yeah, I also like it, because it looks like balanced to me. Just a note: modding can do wonders! :D

 Just imagine...X nation has strong units and awesome techs - They must control 10 shards in order to cast the high tier spells, Y nation has weak units and mediocre techs - They must control 5 shards only in order to be able to cast the high tier spells. Sounds good imo.

@Tormy,

Hmm I wonder what you read that gave you the idea that one side would require more shards to cast high tier spells than another side, or if that is just an idea that you are throwing out there. I see what you are trying to accomplish and I kind of like the idea, but I am wondering how the 'gamemaster' determines why one side it would take less shards than another side? It's an intriguing idea, mind you, just wondering how it might be implemented...in a non exploitable way.

I was actually wondering that too after I read Tormy's post. I don't think I like that idea though. What would be the point of needing to go to war to capture nodes if you can already cast the high tier spells using less node power?

If something that allows smaller kingdoms to cast high tier spells with less the needed node power is added I think maybe it should be a skill or ability you pick for your Sov at creation. Maybe a skill like...

Adept: It takes one less node of each kind to cast all spells.

This means that a spell that cost 2 water nodes and two air nodes plus mana to cast would only take 1 air node and 1 water node for a Sovereign with the "Adept" skill.

Another thing that keeps coming to mind is City spam. I can foresee now that everyone will build their cities right on top of nodes, I know I do. This means if you wanted to trade a node or two through diplomacy that you'd basically be giving a enemy (or allied) Sovereign control of a building in one of your towns.

If how-ever you could build a node/mine without having it inside the city proper then you could trade them as needed.

Say you have a surplus of Fire nodes and you need a few more Water nodes. Your neighbor has a surplus of Water nodes and is willing to trade you two for two. If the node/mines were connected to cities by roads instead of in the cities themselves it would be much easier to allow them to be traded.

I'm also hoping there is a way to control shards without having to build a city next to each one.  The gathering of shards would create more city spam just to cast good spells.  Also essence would be spent to gather each shard, with may actually be a good balance, but maybe we can spend say 2 essence to create an outpost that controls the shard vs. 5 and a city.

Well, it was an idea indeed. I think that it can be balanced, since even if X nation can cast high tier spells faster and easier, they will have weaker units and techs...you can "balance" the high tier spells via modding as well.

Also, @Raven X - I think rather than considering it "giving control" of the node, maybe more of a "I will channel two nodes worth of Fire "energy" to you if you channel two water nodes at me - it would be an ongoing agreement, like a trade agreement, and could be broken any time by either side. (If done vs. the AI I would like to see it only minimally affect relations). Of course how big of a deal it was could be dependent on the AI's personality...