Spells & Magic

Spells and magic? Ok I'm sold where do I buy it?

That new way to research spells sounds good. It'll be very nice to try it. And good to know "see" the effects of feedback. ^^ I like the pic but... no more cards like in the Media section?

Must hate kittens???

I'm really looking forward to the magic and spell part of the game. That was basically my favourite in MoM. Didn't have much use for vast armies, or dozens of towns. Just a few heroes and 2-3 towns so full of magic that cats would spontaneously explode in their presence.

There was a downside to overuse of magic on attacking armies. Some towns had wards against a certain type of magic, like chaos. Which meant that any creature I had with Chaos Channel on it, as in wings, speed, shield, fire breath, was unable to enter.

I'd really like to see something similar in Elemental.

I also have a suggestion for a spell. It's an overland enchantment(if you have those) that interrupts any healing spell, causing it to turn it's target into a sheep instead. I call it Thaubaaaaaturgy.

So it's a grate plague?

Thanks for a peek into the magic system! I love tidbits like this!

That Pic would seem to indicate the need for another spell set.

Namely Fire Proofing!

D'aw, but i like kittens.

Nice magic screen, and i like the direction the magic system is going.

Also "heat lightning"?

So what’s the problem with that? Plenty. First, it means that the guy who sits on the shards is going to win the game. It really aggravates our biggest pet peeve in these kinds of games – the game being won in the first 10 minutes and then spending the next 2 hours going through the motions.

There are many ways to solve this problem. First can the crystal be captured, like nodes in master of magic. If they can, these crystals becomes strategic locations to capture if you want to destabilize a player.

Now you said that the player accumulated points while holding the crystal. So the player is growing better. Which mean that if he lose his crystal, it prevent him to grow but not to use magic. In this case you can make sure that the crystal are his mana source and getting your crystal captured gives the player so little mana that he gets a really weak spell casting potential.

The problem in master of magic is that buildings in cities generate a lot of power which mean that even if you cut all the nodes, the wizard still gets a large amount of mana. So make sure that if your buildings gives mana, it is very limited. Or the number of buildings that produce mana is limited. The best solution would be to use a system like wonders. Which mean that you could only build 1 per player or per world so that increasing your empire size does increase the basic mana you get.

If you want to get even nastiers, you can make sure that it is the crystal that grows in power not the players. Controlling a crystal gives you more mana and access to more spell. When you lose control of a crystal, not only you lose the mana income, but you also lose access to the spells contained in the crystal. This system would work a bit like materias in Final Fantasy VII.

Hope it helps

I think that this method really is better for gameplay reasons, but I wish that there was a way to explain it better in fictional terms. I hate the word 'points' in games. Points are for stand up arcade games. What are these 'points'? There's gotta be a name that's more fun.

EDIT: I also like how this kinda separates tech research from spell research. I was kinda skeptical about that. I still am, but the more differences between spell research and tech research the better.

That attached image makes me feel all tingly inside...

That attached image makes me feel all tingly inside...

Me too.

I always said to my self that If I was a wizard, My most powerfull spell would be "meteor storm" and the effect would look similar to the picture above.

I'm not sure I understand how the gaining spell points which then can be used to buy any spell, is better than a spell tech research tree.

Sure, I can see that it would give you a better variety of spell choices. However, I also don't really care for the idea that a player can sit on a huge chunk of undedicated spell points, wait until you attack with a group of magicked units, and then suddenly learn the perfect counter spells for the occasion. It provides a strong incentive not to commit yourself to a particular line of development.

YIkes!

I really do not like the proposed spell acquisition method described here.

I think it would actually be better if you just had your researchers stumble across spells randomly than the way it has been described.

Also are you abandoning the shard concept?  What then are you using to power spells?

I must say I like the UI..... except for the fact that the Spellbook looks so.... NEW: a real, honest-to-Titans spellbook should look old and crinkled, IMHO.

And when are we gonna get that Metaphysics thread!?

I believe in the system that is currently being developed: 

a ) You get generic mana from all shards and sources built up in 1 bank.

b ) There is a prerequisite number of shards of each type required to cast a particular spell.  Many of them will require 2 or more types (like a gold card in M:TG).  The picture also supports this theory.

This mechanic will still allow you to build power through early capture of shards, but having the wrong type of shard early in the game due to random map generation is not a game killer.  You still have a strategic 'key terrain' at the shards, but allows late game manuvering to still change the game.

So looking forward to the next beta version. I really like the direction.

Bring on Rain of Fire!

Yeah, that could be an ugly exploit.

Maybe limit it by allowing you can build points up until you have enough to research the most expensive known spell (at the time) and then pop up a requirment to choose a spell to learn.  That way you are saving up for bigger spells (but could choose small ones), but you can't save up enough for several powerful spells at the same time.

Awesome!

How about this though: the sovereign can either wander about - or 'go Gandalf' - and do quests and such, or he can lock himself away in his tower like in MoM and research spells himself. It would be cool if there was a way to soft-force the sovereign back to the capitol because he needs to be there to be infused with new spells or something. It makes more sense than him wandering about and suddenly he learns new spells because the academies far, far away gathered enough points.

What if your people gain a bionus to magic research when he is stationary in the capitol? It would encourage players to really think about pro's and con's: do you venture out and grab a few items and quests, or do you hang back and gain a magical advantage to use that to devastating effect later.

All in all I like the idea of gathering points for research and such, but what makes this truly great is having several options that have pro's and con's and that have to be carefully considered each and every game.

1.A) I agree it's aggravating to win or see someone else win a game that should take an hour in the first ten minutes. That initial resource grab in the beginning of a game though can set up strategies that can last through a entire campaign. "Going through the motions" can be fun if those "motions" are trying to wrestle away control of valuable resources away from a powerful enemy. This provides a great challenge for the player I think and can lead to fun game-play.

2.A) This sounds like a good system, but how will it prevent people from winning early on by grabbing up shards?

I can see how map control is going to be especially serious in this game if the number of shards required gets very high.   In fact, that sounds like it will seriously change players ability to not expand.

What is the trade off in researching spells vs. researching technology?

What is the opportunity cost of developing academies over other buildings?

I really do not want to see this game turn into one where there is no trade off other than chosing which kind of research building to build first.

To go to one extreme perhaps you should have to expend essense to build an academy, or to allow you to research the next level or class of spells.  Perhaps one should have to expend essense to 'turn on' shards, otherwise they just produce some small(er) amount of mana but do not allow you to use them as their color.

I just get the feeling that this is being dumbed down a bit, and to a point where it is not actually going to provide much in forceing the player to make any real decisions with respect to it.  Especially if the proposed spell learning mechanism is kept.  Really, that's just too bizarre (and rather non-realistic) manner of 'researching' spells.

And for those who will cry about the use of the word 'realistic' take it with a grain of salt.  But just saying that your empire accumulates these knowledge points (or whatever they will be called) which can be cashed in whenever for whatever spell you like is just too much like those junk trinkets you pick up with your credit card points.  Futher that with the fact that it just doesn't make any sense from any stand point other than a pure game design point of view.  Where is the immersion into the game world in this case?

lol "honest to titan"  I totally agree tho 

P.s- Shurdus, you will never be able to use that rain of fire spell if you don't change your avatar    

Let me offer you some ideas for alternative means for mana generation:

1. The soveriegn can generate all mana types. The crystals only help to give the soveriegn a percent increase (or whole number increases) to their base rate. Having a lot of fire shards would allow a soveriegn to be a great fire mage, where as other soveriegns are pitiful fire mages in comparison... until they decide to show you what they've been saving up for.

2. Shards are the best sources of elemental mana... but not the only source. Shards are merely easy to find, and they require little investment to use once claimed. Other sources might require a soveriegn to research a cheap knock off that would produce the mana he/she would otherwise be deprived of. Perhaps a dragon produces an abundance of fire mana which provides a very real in game justification as to why they breath fire (they're full of it).

Really cool spell, rain of fire, hmm I mean, really hot spell ... Can't wait  to see the other ones ...

The system for learning spells seems good as long as you can't just cash in on new spells before a fight to counter the enemy. There could also be a limit like you can only learn maximum one new spell per turn, and on top of that maybe it would still take x turns to actually acquire the spell after you have paid for it. Just to avoid that players can sit on a big spell bank account and suddenly change the whole game by cashing in all their stocks at once ...

Well, I don't like this system. You can choose from all spells, that actually means:

in all games the player will have the same or nearly the same spells. Perhaps on a small map the shards can randomize it a bit (missing color of the shards), but on big maps the shards won't limit it at all. So the player allways chooses his favourit (= strongest) spell. Fragile allegiance was similar and I disliked the system.

I hoped the spell research would be somewhat dependent on the general research. If you haven't researched the medicine, no "plaque spells".