With a global mana system, we gain the ability to have strategic spells be caster independent.

It also opens up a lot of very important game elements for the AI as well as the player in terms of making spells have more "interesting choices" such as:

• Spell cool down (N turns before being able to cast again)
• Turns to cast a spell (a spell that takes N turns to cast)

The reason these two things become possible is because in Elemental v1.0x, your maximum mana was tied to the caster's essence.

In v1.1, magical essence is a boolean (you got it or you don't).  Anyone who has magical essence can thus draw magic from the global pool.

Children of sovereigns become crucial because unlike imbued heroes, they naturally have essence (so there is no imbue cost associated).  It also opens up the possibility of being able to use stored mana for enchanting items or forging tools and such in the future.

Now, while you humans may find this stuff "fun" it's the AI that benefits the most from it because I can write the AI with a system where there's a specific goal -- maximizing mana production.  Plus, if a channeler can cast strategic spells into a tactical battle even if he's not present, it justifies putting lots of time into intelligently choosing which spells to cast.

I.e. if I, as a developer, KNOW that magic can be part of every battle, then it justifies the time to create and use more interesting spells.

Now, someone might/should ask, why didn't we have this from the outset? I'm sure some beta testers suggested something like this (MOM had this).  I really don't have a good explanation other than to say that we fell too far towards the RPG line of thinking -- treating each unit as if it were an RPG character rather than thinking of your kingdom strategically. In short, we really wanted to find a way to have our cake and eat it too but you know what they say -- even when you don't make a choice, you're making a choice. In this case, not biting the bullet and being decisive in making magic a strategic game mechanic rather than an individual quasi-RPG with some strategic mechanic has been crippling across the board to the game's overall design. 

There is no "magic bullet" of course but nearly all mechanics, balance, etc. flowed from the decision of having mana tied to individual magic casters rather than having them make use of a global pool that is derived from a single source (the channeler sovereign).  With everything revolving around a mana limiter that can only be raised individually by going up levels, you cripple the scope of magic and in turn the combat and the variance in the world (i.e. things get boring).

Worse yet, the per unit mana limit in Elemental v1.0x also limits modding because modders too are stuck with the same problems I run into -- all spells have to be between 1 and 15 or so mana.  Look at the change to teleport -- 15 mana. Not that big of a deal if you're using a global mana pool but it's a big deal if you max at say 12 mana because of an essence block.  

What about having the soverign or different characters have a bonus to the effectivenes when casting spells.  This will make t he global system viable as well as keeping the soverign or heroes important within the game.

For instance:

when casting fireball (depending on skills and what not) a normal caster gets 1.0(+whatever global bonus) x spell damage whereas the soverign will get 1.5(or some value)+(whatever global bonus) x spell damage.

I think this will make soverigns important for major battles and would make it worth the risk to use them.

Do  you mean any battle with a Sov or an imbued Champion in it?  Or any battle at all?  If I have nothing but a Peasant defending my capitol can I still fire off tactical spells during the battle??

Having cool down and cast time seems redundant to me (both  aim to keep spells from being cast too frequently), but it does not matter to me if both are used.

So "before 1.1" would be a good time for specific suggestions on making spells more interesting?

Such as the Teleport that came up.
While some insist that it must be removed altogether, that does not make it any more balanced or in any way interesting.

Many real balancing attempts mean a change to the scripted spell behaviour anyway.
Cost is okay for damage spells but for unique and strategy changing abilities like Organised or Teleport, that doesn't always work.
Once you're "over the hump" and the cost becomes reasonable, cost-based balance goes straight out the window.

This is definitely headed in the right direction. And to still maintain some of the RPG feel and character individualization, you can simply make some characters more "adept" at magic than others. ie. if they're level 5 caster or whatever, they get a bonus in potency of magic spell, or a mana cost reduction, or some other special power tied to the individual. This means the Sovereign as well should have some uniqueness. And the kids as well, This also opens up possibility of Sovereign marrying some other magical person, and then the offspring would have both traits (at random) or a boost to ability. This would make the dynasty that much more interesting.

All in all, great ideas here.

Frogboy, thanks for taking the time to give us some details.

I like some of where this is going, I really do...

But...

Maybe I'm slow / tired / dumb...but does this mean that a magic user on one side of my empire can cast some spells and use up all the mana, and then a 'fresh' magic user on the other side of my empire will be rendered helpless and unable to cast until the global pool regenerates? If so, then I really won't like this system....I like the current system, where a magic user can exhaust them self and need to rest and receive protection. I hate the idea of a 'fresh' magic user losing their ability to cast spells because some other wizard used up all the mana.

Am I understanding the new system?

If global mana is the future, I hope we can at least use the Wisdom stat or something to give each magic user their own personal pool that can be used on top of the global  pool, or something.... I just loathe the idea of a 'fresh' caster not being able to cast. It won't feel like using magic is a personally difficult and strenuous act, it will just make it feel like  one guy ate all the donuts and didn't leave any for the others...

This might actually make more sense. The global pool could be for those big strategic spells, while the personal pool could be used for tactical battles.

That is exactly what I'm afraid of Goontrooper. MoM avoided this by having Global mana and a mana stat on characters. The heroes mana stat was only used for tactical battles and all major spells were cast from the global pool.

The last "Global" implementation which created the system of crazy city spamming, identical towns and no strategic placement to cities has left a sour taste in my mouth for when Frogboy gets excited about his next "global" craze. Global mana pool worked really well in MoM, but I have no faith in Stardock any more to implement the system with an ear to what their customers are asking for.

Hmmm... that's an interesting point, when I think about what changes the game needs to implement the new system, the only thing I see from what you guys are saying, is that you add a new resource (mana), add generators and then have a way to "cost" this new resource when you use spells. Maintenance can just be a negative generator. If I understand this correctly, the current system could still stay, right? Perhaps wisdom/essence can just be hidden away in the main game with a tag like so many other things, and thus can be brought back with a mod to use the current mechanic to do things like individual spell caster like it is now if we want... Is this too much to ask for? Or am I misunderstanding the implementation completely?

Well, I don't like what you propose - it confuses things and makes them more complex. It is also more difficult to balance when you have to think of two mana types.

With a global mana pool, it's actually better, because now you have to think whether you will pull that strategic volcano over there, or preserve mana for local encounters. I really don't understand the concern with spending mana and not having enough for your guys in battle - that is the player's oversight if he unwisely spent all the mana with a single caster/using the global spells, and hasn't kept a reserve for tactical battles!

This sounds absolutely brilliant, Brad, and I cannot wait for you to roll it out!

I like the sound of this change. Makes it seem more like your Sovereign is an actual channeler, redirecting magic from the shards. One or two things I'm not sure about, but I guess I'll have to see it in action first.

I'm not as negative as you about this, and I have faith that Stardock will do what they think is best, which will be to try to make the game fun. I just may disagree with them about what 'fun' is.

I think I explained it well, and if you disagree, that is fine. It isn't a gameplay issue, which seems to be what you are focused on with the 'player oversight.' I just don't find it fun from the perspective of fun and fluff or anything else. Like I said, this system basically turns mana into nothing more than another global stockpiled resource. So you can have a cool mage become worthless because some  other mage used all the mana. That isn't very interesting or fun to me. What is fun is an individual mage fighting like heck and exhausting himself in battle, while other mages are free to go about, y'know, being mages. It removes personality and importance from individual characters, which is already really lacking with the Champions and other areas of the game.

Think about this: It could impact your Sovereign. Let us say that you have built a Sov as a super mage. Well, what happens when some piddly champion you imbued burns all the mana in tactical combat? Now your Sov, who might be sitting in his palace, suddenly loses the ability to cast spells. Seriously? What is fun or thematic about that? It just seems silly to me on many levels.

In my opinion, Stardock should be doing more to give greater depth and personality to every aspect of the game, not engaging in further simplification or consolidation.

I really like what Brad has said with regard to strategic spells, AI, mods, etc. I would like to see him address the issue I have raised here...I don't think I am alone in being worried about it.

Also, if an imbued champion levels up & chooses essense, how does this work? does it just increase the size of the global mana pool? Is there any extra regeneraton for having multiple imbued characters (i.e. curently 5 guys regenerate 5 mana, 1 guy regenerates one .. in the new system if regeneration is tied to shards then there is only "N" mana regernation regardless of how many imbued champions. So, if you have 10 imbued champions for example that have leveled up the global mana pool to say 1200, but the shards are only raising by 5 the amount of man regeneration, say N=5, then we'll be regenerating only 5 mana a turn. That's not much better than the currents system cuz the mana pool will be next to empty every friggin turn).

I can see some kind of advantage in having a global pool in that if your sovereign has completely drained his mana, he'll at least have something to work with next turn, but it still doesnt cover the larger picture of empty mana pools. If N=5 then the old system with 6 channellers generating 6 mana per turn is still better. Unless there is some way of "recharging the mana pool" at a higher rate the old system is still better, also the shard locations might as well become the victory conditons because all the human players will just be doing the "getgo shard-blitz" for shard locations from turn 1. Everyone will ramp their movement up to 5 or 6 and all scouts will have travelling boots and scout cloaks. The game will become "shard-search-and-conquer" instead of "elemental war of magic".

A side-effect is going to force players to do "manual" on every battle becuause you don't want a spellcaster to be casting that 6-mana firestorm spell on a 2hp wolf.

That is another reason to limit how much mana each mage can draw from the pool each turn.  It would also make each caster have more diffrence besides some casting spells with greater effect.

Imbued champions, per the current preposal, reduce mana income.

By "confusing", I did not mean it was hard to understand your point. Anyway, I still do not understand that point about a caster not being able to cast - nobody is forcing you to use have your imbued hero spam spells like there's no tommorrow, so if you cast sensibly and preserve mana, there shouldn't be a problem. Especially if shards give you bonus to mana regen, in which case you'd regain multiple points per turn. Plus if your sovereign is really sitting in his palace, then chances are he won't have to cast any spells anyway.

But I see the point about what you propose being more fun. It's just that it sounds silly that you detach mana for global spells from anyone effectively - presumably, it is the sovereign who is casting them, but then he essentially has double the amount of mana in "real world use", say 50 to cast his global spells and 50 for tactical combat (of course as Brad wrote, in gameplay terms, the spells are really detached and are "global", but I like to have at least some justification for gameplay mechanics). But perhaps more importantly, while single mana pool may be more simplistic, it is a strategic resource that you have to plan for - which makes it more interesting from a game theoretical perspective than two pools that don't punish you for spamming spells all day long.

True. Then provide a checkbox to prevent the caster from using ANY spells in the autoresolve at all.

It is a restrictive solution though. Ah well maybe you guys are right after all, it's just that the original proposal got me interested as mana suddenly became another important thing to factor into your overall strategy, influencing decisions about unit production and so on. The double pool is simpler and more forgiving.

Sorry, but I don't understand this (insuficient detail for me), how does this affect an imbued champion raising a level & choosing essence? If mana "income" (which I take is supposed to mean "mana recharge rate") is fixed as N "mana regeneration points" (or "income") per shard (say N=5) then you can have only 4 champions (minus four "reduced mana income") and hence only increase mana by 1/turn (5 for one shard - 4 imbued champions = 1). That would really sux and make spells useless because you'd never have any mana to use.  

Essense will not increase per current info. You will have it or not. And giving units essense via imbue will have an upkeep cost.

One solution would be to be able to select a mana usage plan for auto battle (e.g none, coservative, scaled, and overkill). I still think a per turn limit would be good tough.

I'm wholly behind the Global Mana pool. It's a good system, it will help modders because it is flexible, and it will require choices to be made in all aspects of the game.

What I'm genuinely curious about is the impact of shards. I agree with several of the previous posters that simply having shards poop out 1 mana per turn if you control them is pretty lame. There is limited strategic value in that, and really devalues what they seem to BE according to the Mythos of Elemental.

Perhaps another option would be to have a finite number of shards of each flavor spawn on each new map, based upon the size of map and number of players, and distributed evenly, but a distance away from all the cities. Now, I'm going to toss some numbers around here, but they can and should all be variables. On a medium sized map with 6 factions, there would be lets say 12 shards in play (a multiple of four, evenly split between the elements).

Each and every one of these shards kicks off 12 mana per turn (2 per faction at the start of game). At turn one, each sovereign draws one mana per shard in play. As soon as a sovereign locates a shard, they begin to draw 2 mana from it. They know where it is, and can focus their near-godly attentions upon extracting more mana. Upon capturing a shard, the controlling player begins to draw 50% of the total output of the shard (6 for this example), and all other sovereigns lose access to the mana generated as it is being mechanically focused to one sovereign. THEN, tech improvements allow the sovereign to draw more and more essence from each of their controlled crystals until they reach the maximum 12 points/turn (or whatever)

This system is likely to make shards incredibly valuable and highly contested for magic-oriented players and factions, and also a great target for militarily oriented factions, as breaking shrines at shards will free mana for all casters, and cripple the impacted sovereign's magic income.

Then why are you here?

You are still  'punished' for having a character 'spam' spells. That character will exhaust their mana and need time to rest, during which time they will be vulnerable. Basically the system as it is now. You just don't 'punish' every mage in the empire for the actions of one mage. It would make sense for a big strategic spell that has a huge impact to maybe suck up mana that others might want to tap into...but it doesn't make sense to limit someone from casting a level 1 spells. In some ways, the current system is harder...one mage can't just keep firing spells, using the empire wide mana pool. That mage has to rely on their own mana.

I'm all for forcing hard decisions on players, but I think we already have that with the current system.

If I have an imbued champion and level up after a battle, how does this effect the global mana pool?

If the answer is "there is no effect", then how does the mana pool increase outside of controlling shard locations?

If the answer is "there is no other way to increase global mana pool" then this creates a bottleneck for the magic system and *will* (notice I didn't say "might," I can predict this beforehand) cause the game to become a "search & conquer of shard locations" from the getgo both to defeat the AI (by negating their magic ability, i.e. no shards = no mana income, no mana recharge, and no spells outside what's in the current mana pool) and whatever multiplayer humans. the difference in this system and the system we have now is that you have to take down all AI cities & their sovereign to beat a particular AI, in the new system you only need to take the shard cities thereby making a game of conquest much easier for the human player.

By the way, what happens to supported (champions that are already under upkeep cost) when you lose all your shards? As this will certainly happen to AI, and ultimately to most human players in the multiplayer mode? I'm guessing, from my previous example of 4 imbued champions that now have no shard support that we're losing 4 mana a turn (negative income) thus reducing whatever mana we have stored until it hits zero, what happens at zero mana with imbued champs that require "upkeep costs"? 

I don't know, right now from what I can figure out the new magic proposal doesn't seem very appealing but there is a lack of detail as to how it actually works (maybe the designer doesn't even know how it'll work fully at this point). From what I can tell, it'll cause predictable game strategies & perhaps exploits. Giving the sovereign some "automatic" mana regeneration ability in addition to shards would help reduce the predictable bottleneck I can see at this point based upon the currenty info provided.

This. Also, we could potentially introduce high-level spells that you could only cast if you controlled at least one (or maybe a given amount the more powerful the spell is) shard of the spell's school of magic. Maybe there could be even lower-level spells that would depend on shard control.

Wow, that would really bring the magic into the game. On a side note, more fantasy creatures with unique abilities, please! (Unlocking via adventuring tech is quite a good idea.)