Ok...

So im i understanding it right, if with the new system it will be like this.

Lets say you have a game:

There are you and you have a child.

You do not have a chard or building that generates mana.

Right now your mana pool is zero.

Your soverign is the only one that generats 1 mana/turn.

(Will the child generate 1 mana/turn as well?)

So lets say you want to cast the teleport spell, the cost is 15 mana.

It will take 15 game turns to generate the mana, then there will be a number of turns to cast the spell.

(lets say 3 turns)

After 15 turns you cast the spell, it take 3 turns to cast, during this time you generate 3 mana for the "pool".

(3 turns to cast * 1 mana/turn = 3 mana in "pool")

When you have cast the spell there will be 3 mana in your "pool" for you or your child to cast a spell.

Now the way it is now is how i like it.

Your magic units regenerate there own mana ewry turn.

This way when my soverign casts the teleport spell, my child can still cast spells and not be left with the 3 that regenerated wile my dad was casting the spell.

If my first exampel is right, then maby the game should change its name from Elemental: War of Magic to Elemental: War FOR Magic.

A few things...

1) I have never said that the current system is perfect. I agree that it needs some work, and I'm not 100% against the global pool. My main problem with it is that it makes individual mages less important and independent. They are all just tapping into the same finite pool. None of us know how this will play out, but it does raise the possibility of one mage using up all the available mana, preventing the Sovereign, children, and others from using any spells. Yes, it will regenerate, but that takes time, and until then no one will be able to cast any spells. This does force the player to make hard decisions, but I think it reduces the importance of each individual mage as a unique individual...I like  that in the current system, if a mage is fighting in lots of battles, he might be exhausted by this and need time to rest and regain mana, meanwhile the Sovereign and other mages can go about the business of being mages without being personally weakened.

2) I'm fine with shards becoming a valuable resource to be fought over. The more things that drive players  into conflict or cooperation, the better. Perhaps the AI could even be programmed to use this, so the more magic-focused Soveriengs and Empires might be more likely to start a war over controlling shards while a less magic focused AI might be more interested in going to war over gold mines. Also, I would like to see shards attract powerful elementals and other defenders to make acquiring them even more difficult and ultimately rewarding. Didn't we have that in beta at one point?

3) If we are going to a global system, here is what I would like to see:

- Create a global pool based on the system Brad has described. This pool will be used for strategic-level spells such as enchanting cities, altering terrain, big summons, etc. These are the big, powerful spells that tap into the empire's controlled shards and other mana-producing things. They are so powerful that they require more mana than an individual can provide. Limit the amount of global mana that can be used by each mage, based on their intelligence, wisdom, level, or whatever. This would mean that a powerful, experienced Sovereign would be able to channel more effectively at the strategic level than their inexperienced young child.

- Keep personal mana for each character with essence. Base this off intelligence or wisdom or whatever. This personal pool can be used for tactical combat and perhaps limited strategic spells (small enchantments, small summons, etc.)

- In this system, you will still have many hard choices to make with magic, but at no time will you end up eliminating the ability of any mage to cast spells just because some other mage has used up all  the mana. It would create a clear split between strategic (big and powerful, global mana) and tactical (small and local, personal mana) spell use.

Goontrooper, did you see my reply on the previous page? I explained how the proposed system could fit with the lore. I'm curious to hear what you think..

I think for me this is why I agree most with the switch to global mana, it opens up treating mana as a resource for the kingdom and really makes the magic system more strategic and less used for the odd tactical battle.

So long as it is correctly balanced it should work well.

Will there also be improvements along the lines of mana batteries e.g. will a kingdom have a limit on max mana they can store which can be increased through improvements. Assuming that what you mean is mana and maintinance costs are added / subtracted per turn.

i hope no one minds me reposting this; i got in just at the end of the page and before brad's post, which pretty much guarantees no responses.

you might also do better with mana regenerating with a non linear formula. if you use

mana = max mana x (1 - e ^ (- game constant x turn number))



this chart shows mana regen over turns on the x axis, with a max mana of 20 (red) and 15 (yellow)

then your mana regenerates at a decreasing rate until it reaches your max mana. every summon or channeler reduces your max mana by one or two points and every shard increases it. the lower your max mana, the lower the regeneration. this means that you don't get rewarded too much for sitting around forever and piling up mana, you can have a decent number of summons and you still have decent mana regen rates when you've been using it a lot. plus it's impossible for the player to end up with negative regen.

crucially it means there is only one number for the player to deal with: their max mana. it's this that is increased by shards, reduced by summons and other maintenance, and determines your regen rate as well. everyone's mana pool theoretically takes the same time to refill from 0 to their personal max, and this time is determined by the game constant. this can very easily be related to the game speed option and tweaked if people think mana is generally unbalanced.

maths solves everything.

 Wow. A global mana pool like in MOM or aow is great.

The problem is that EWOM already has its own set of variables.. Confusing like heck..

But i think almost everyone agrees

(a) imbued champions should have some limit to the amount of mana they could throw around each turn.

Problem though how do we square that with the MOM type idea that Brad confirmed will be in that you can cast overland magic? I think perhaps overland magic can be unlimited so you could toss raise land spells, but during TC, only imbued heroes could cast spells (with limits to available mana based on say wisdom)

(b) There should be some trade-off to imbuing champions. Someone who chose not to (or choose to do so less) .. should be almost competitive as one who did. I suggest imbuing champions should slow down mana generation for sure (only sovereigns and maybe offspring do mana generation) but that may not be enough to tip the scales..

anyone disagree?

Actually Sethai I think your idea for non-linear mana regeneration is a good one, although my first reaction was why over complicate things I can see your point.

I think that sounds like the magic system of Disciples 2 and that system was great, because you have the option to cast multiple small spells or a single powerful spell, but it will only work if the spells are very good balanced and i hope the spell balance will be MUCH better than the weapon balance, which still needs a lot of work.

If the tactical spells have a low mana cost (1 or 2) a clear split is not needed in my opinion, because a caster can still use a few spells per combat and a few turns later his troops will have maximum health and the lost mana will be recovered. This improves the options in every game, because if a player wants to kill everything with spells he will probably not have enough mana to improve his cities or teleport himself out of trouble.

The new mana system will clearly require a complete rebalance of current spells as well as allowing lots of new options for spending mana both on spell casting and other things. The idea sounds good but the devil is in the detail, sure they will get it right in the end but such a major overhaul is going to require more than one balance pass I think.

This sounds good. Provided of course we don't receive it until there has been time taken on balance etc. After enjoying the beta i'm becoming rather tired of constant patches making big changes which are then reversed in a week's time as it is realised how they break the game. Sure these changes are good, perhaps even have more beta patches like 1.08b but i'm getting tired of feeling like a beta tester when the next big 'idea' comes out...

Make sure we don't get anything in a non-beta patch that hasn't had proper time to be tested and balanced and i'll be a happy chappy .

Sorry, I meant to respond to that.

That is a decent point, but what about children who are natural spellcasters? Shouldn't they be part of a separate pool from the Sov?

Bottom line is that I am perfectly willing to give Stardock the benefit of the doubt here, despite any earlier stumbles, because I know that they want to make Elemental the best it can be. I'm not a big fan of some aspects of the global system as it is proposed, but I'm willing to withhold judgement until I see how the whole thing fits together.

That said, I would be happy if Stardock decided to go with the kind of system and I and other have described, where you have personal and global mana.

I'm ok with over complicating things if it is below the surface...it is a computer, it doesn't mind.

Good point,I thought about that too. You could indeed give each of them their own mana pool, but that would raise a lot of issues besides having to manage several pools. Like should the children receive the benefits of owning shards? It's not very consistent if they don't share mana but do share shard bonuses. And should they have access to the same spells? Etc..

You could avoid these issues if you say that because they and the sovereign are closely related, they have a link that allows them to share their magical powers.

I'm not saying the system you and others have proposed is bad, but I think Stardock's idea could work and fit with the lore, so I wouldn't mind seeing them implement it.

From a design perspective if Shards are to become true strategic resources thhen they will need a barrier/obstacle added in some form to balance reward to risk.  Otherwise you will have the fast start-rush strategies in play.

Perhaps having  an obstacle such as a scaling in power monster/nps group guarding each shard (yes I know blatant re-use of MOM; but sometimes good design carries); this would force a playre decision path:  explore OR shard OR conquer another player etc. 

Would thing any strategic resource should have an element of PVE blocking if its truly to be scarce

One thing that I'd like to see as part of that is a rebalancing of the heroes/champions.  If imbuing a champion becomes a tax on the global mana pool, the natural tendency will be to imbue fewer heroes, which is fine.  But in the current versions of the game, the only heroes I really trust to hold their own in a fight are the ones that can toss spells.  I don't trust any of them to not get slaughtered in a straight up melee fight against anything except basic bears, spiders, and brigands...and even then they take more damage than I'd like to see.  While this is fine for some of the more administrative like heroes (such as the +20% farming or +1 tech/arcane), the heroes that are adventurers/thieves/assassins/etc. should be capable of impressive combat feats.

Thematically, if you think back to series like LotR, Song of Ice and Fire, Dragonlance, etc., the heroes should be capable of wading through basic enemies and putting up a decent fight against tougher foes.

Game wise, a couple things that I'd like to see:

1) Fix the bug that heroes with special abilities can't activate those abilities unless they have an essence pool.  It doesn't make sense for me to get a champion that has a note 'special attack does xyz' and then find that he can't actually do that unless I imbue him.

2) Champions should arrive more ready to go.  It doesn't make much sense to find a level 3 adventurer wandering the wilds with just a club, no armor, attack of 2 and defense of 0 when any random monster I meet is stronger than that.

3) Since one of the goals of the global mana pool is to reduce the reliance on summons, maybe some new hero abilities should be created, like +1 atk/def to units grouped with the hero.  This fits in thematically with the idea's of champions leading an army.

On a completely unrelated note, the diplomacy AI still needs a lot of work.  Last night I was playing and get a random message from one of hte AI countries that he wants to talk about treaties.  But he doesn't make an offer, and when I go to the treaties page, the perceived value for treaties on his side are all like 10x the perceived value of treaties on my side.  So I just shrugged, told him goodbye and let him be.

Just thought of something- Sions.

Sions may need to be changed because of this system:

No idea how though.

Dear Frogboy,

Having created systems from scratch (albeit on a much smaller scale than a computer game with the scope of Elemental), it may be easier if you scaled up the numbers a bit to go back and tweak things from a balance standpoint.  Instead of having the Sovereign generate 1 mana per turn and having shards generate 1 mana per turn, and having spells cost 2 mana or 3 mana or 4 mana, I suspect it would be easier to go back and tweak things if the Sovereign generated 10 mana per turn, and shards generated 10 mana per turn.  Under the current system, perhaps 6 months down the road, you find out that shards should be generating 1.3 mana per turn in terms of game balance.  What happens then?  Characters don't have fractional mana points.

I know that seems trivial, but from a game balance standpoint, it would be easier to do it this way.  Down the road, you are going to add a number of spells.  Having been a long time strategy gamer, I'm going to figure out that spell X costs 1 and spell Y costs 2 time but spell Y is only 1.7 times as powerful, and I will never cast spell Y.  Perhaps upkeep of summoned monster X would be more balanced to cost 12 mana per turn rather than 10, and another summoned monster would be more balanced to charge 9 mana per turn.

Under the currently proposed system, I see games degenerating to the point where everyone every game casts the most efficient spells and summons the most efficient monsters and only a fraction of the spells you create for gamers ever gets used. 

Anyway, this proposal is really just a math thing, but I think it would be easier to implement now before the magic overhaul than afterward.  Its going to be more of a pain in the ass to switch a spell to 2.5 mana for game balance purposes 6 months from now when characters don't have fractional mana.  Most of us here are long time experienced strategy gamers and know what I am talking about when I suggest that the majority of spells and units created in the game will never be used because other spells and units will be more cost effective.  Its just easier to fix these things when your base numbers are larger.

I don't think Brad meant that mana would be shared between Channelers, Imbued Champions, and Offspring, because it doesn't make sense.

The mana in the GMP is not the total sum of mana available in the world, but rather the 'power' that the Channeler has accumulated over time. This power is not literally sitting in some physical and separate pool waiting to be used as though it were gold brought in from the mines or food shipped in from the farms, rather, it is within the Channelers themselves, in their own internal 'power well'.

The idea of a Channeler imbuing a Champion with spell casting ability, only to have to pay for all their spells is pretty useless. The same goes with Offspring. If they have inherited that trait from their sires, then it stands to reason that they would be able to draw on the worlds' magical power themselves.

What sets the Channeler apart from Imbued Champions, Offspring and other magic-users (in future expansions please? You still have a chance to write them into the story ), is that the Channeler can accumulate and 'keep' power/mana over time, and can imbue people with magical abilities, as well as having access to the more MEGA spells, and to a wider range of spells in general.

That is why I think it's a good idea to let Non-Channeler magic users have a mana limit per turn based on their stats, abilities, and equipment, and to have that mana regenerate completely every turn. And it would follow that the stats, abilities, equipment, buildings/improvements, and magical upkeep of the Channeler should set the amount of mana they accumulate per turn, as well as the maximum amount of mana that the Channeler can draw from their GMP per turn (i.e. the bottleneck), with that per-turn amount resetting every turn.

Also, the Channelers should be able to pump more power into their spells. It would set them further apart from other magic users, and rewards the strategy of leaning more towards the full magic path.

Hello,

   Having tried to read through much of this thread, and some of the others, here are my thoughts on the proposed GMP system - and if any ideas are duplicated from what someone else has already thrown out, then simply take that part of my opinion to be an agreement with your prior suggestion.
   Anyway, here are my basic thoughts:

   Whenever a caster, or party containing one, is selected, amidst the UI panel at the bottom would include a horizontal mana gauge (much like in combat); the same to be found within the Kingdom Summary page.
   In both cases, if any upkeep-requiring imbued persons, summons, or other things are active, there would be a vertical line denoting the now-maximum mana that can be accumulated/re-generated with that % subtracted out.  This would help you to see, at a glance, how much of your total mana is going toward maintaining all of the things that you've summoned, etc.; otherwise, those things could easily get away from you.
   Next, if you [left-]click on the gauge, it would bring up a new screen, listing, in detail, the different items/creatures/persons/spells consuming the mana upkeep.  From there, there would be an X right next to each one whereby you could simply click once and release the mana by canceling the spell cast.  This introduces the additional ability to un-summon a creature (which may already exist, but I have not yet found), but in any event, allows for quick-and-easy management of your global mana.
   Along those same lines, strategic spells should be modified to also require permanent upkeep, and thereby reduce your overall global mana pool.  The sovereign should have to choose a balance between maintaining additional defenses/resources within their towns, and how much of their magicks they wish to devote toward conquering the world.  So, for example, they can go all-out and spend everything on massive tactical combat, and hope for the best with the towns & families that they have left back home, or, if they opt for the diplomatic route, spending their time building strong relations with their neighbors, then they would need less mana reserves for combat and could use the rest to bolster their towns' resources, defenses against monsters, et. al.
   Lastly on this point, mana should absolutely be shared between channeler, imbued heroes, and the like.  Now, I could see children expanding the pool because of their inherent magical nature, as with the sovereign, though the advantage of having imbued champions able to conduct tactical combat beyond the reach of a lone sovereign is what you are paying for in upkeep; that, and the ability to have your sovereign out of harm's way.  The alternative is what you have now: imbuing a bunch of champions, and then each runs around the board killing everything at once, without regard for how much mana is spent in any one battle, because you have four more champions with three more chain lightning spells up their sleeves with which to clear that half of the world on the same turn; all the while, the sov. sits safely at home, behind stone walls.
   Adding a magical attack bonus, of sorts, to the sovereign, as others have suggested, might make for a good lure to bring that sov. out of hiding….

   Additionally, whomever mentioned that starting with a fertile land, and a gold node, and a shard is a lot of give-me's right out of the gate, I agree completely.  If it requires so many things to get off-the-ground with, then maybe it's just too much.  Besides, shards should be a boon, not a requirement, and racing to beat other kingdoms/empires in hunting down shards is most definitely a worthwhile strategic pursuit; but, possibly having other nodes which bolster units against magic could be an equally valuable alternative.
   Say, instead, that your early units only require food, and one other resource, but that there were canned options for troops that could be made from one of four to five of those "other" resources?  For example, a phalanx requiring bronze (which would need to be added to the game, of course), a spearman fashioned with wood, brigand (dagger-wielder) made from iron, minor mage made from crystal.  Any is a possibility, and it would be coded that you would start with *one* of those required resources to get you going, but each time could be different, introducing a bit more variety at the beginning.
   Now, you could easily balance the "starter" units by having the weaker ones require less of their given resource, so that more can be built in the same amount of time, but then initial combat strategies would be a bit different based on the units that you could make.
   Long-term, of course, you would still expand out, seeking other resource nodes with which to fashion additional unit types; plus, having more resource types can bring about new custom unit designs, such as "Hunter" units with their own minor version of an animal familiar (resource utilization = food, wood, animal [could be added with wandering animal clusters available to be hunted/tamed] ).
   Did I go too far with that last one?  Perhaps.

   I guess the long-and-short of my mental meanderings here is that I like what Stardock is doing; introducing more options for strategy is definitely the right way to go.  Keep up the good work, and thanks for your time.

I don't know...I think most people aren't reading the GMP the way you are. What does everyone else think?

I agree that it would be nice to have individual mana that is determined by stats / items / whatever. I don't want it to auto regenerate each turn. That would be too powerful. I like that spending mana is a choice. If your caster burns through their entire mana pool, they should need time to rest and replenish, with their mana regen rate based on their stats / items / etc.

Another thing I was thinking of. If we do remove all trace of individual mana, I am going to want to at least have items that grant spell-like abilities, so wands, staff,s things like that. These items would not be tied to the GMP and would thus give casters something to fall back on when the mana is low or has been exhausted. I know we are already seeing some mods that do this, which is great.

When you look at things the way they work now, a full per-turn mana regen system does seem like overkill. But with the new magic system, the Channeler will be more of a force, and will be able to cast Global Enchantments, more Overland Spells and City Enchantments, as well as take part in Tactical Battles that they are not physically involved in, in addition to the numerous summoning spells that they already have access to. Add to that the multi-opponent situation, and you get quite a lot of tactical battles happening per turn in the mid-to-late game that the Channeler can have a direct spellcasting role in.

When you have that many scenarios where magic is applicable, the slow regen becomes intolerable and out of place. The balance in this situation will be performed by applying a reasonable formula or algorithm for the per-turn mana bottleneck. This way, even if the Channeler has saved up 1,000,000 MP, they can still only access X MP per turn, with X being decided by how magically powerful that Channeler has become, and balancing that against other paths a Channeler may take means that the magical power comes at a sacrifice, which makes for good strategising.

Some people have suggested placing a limit on spells per turn. I tend to disagree with that, as it is quite arbitrary, and just seems like placing a limit for limits' sake. By that I mean, there is no particular reason why only N number of spells can be cast per turn, whereas a limit to the power a Channeller is able to draw in a given time-frame makes more sense.

I really think that this will put the magic back into 'War of Magic'.

i'm going to go against the grain here and say i really approve of the global mana pool, especially if it regenerates non linearly. i don't think there's any need for individual mana pools. with magic as powerful as it is (and there's nothing wrong with the power levels) making channellers autonomous units in any sense just makes balancing far too difficult. in my last game i got 7 channelers with only one imbue (my spouse, spawning a daughter and two sons, each gaining me a daughter in law) and won the whole game without building any troops, just summons (and i almost didn't even need them). that's obscene.

channelers were never supposed to be the source of magic in this game. magic comes from the shards. the value of channelers should be logistical (being in more places in once) not in overall power. this is the only way they will ever be balanced in a strategy game. the cost of creating channelers should be a sacrifice of individual power and reducing stats. use one stat to limit the level of spells the individual can cast and another the power of spells that are cast by that individual (currently int). one of both of these is then reduced by imbuing (and, i believe, having children, though to a lesser degree).

if you use the system i outlined above that makes the size of the mana pool and it's regen rate the same thing then the player has only three variables to manage. (and the designers have only three variables to manage)

1 - how big is my mana pool and how quickly does it regen (see graph)

2 - how powerful spells can this channeler cast (essense, will effectively stop your hundreds of channelers blowing all the mana in one battle)

3 - how powerful are spells cast by this individual (int)

if anything, i'd increase the size of the pool (and thus the rate of regen) slightly for every channeler. the downside is that it takes you longer to get to cast the big spells and you get less bang for your mana because spells aren't being cast by a skilled master with high int. your strategic spells expecially take a big boost from doing this. you choose between being sauron, or the emperor, accumulating personal power, or an army of heroes with human level power pumping out medium magic. you can't let people do both.

3 variables with checks and balances that represent everything the game needs to and are easily balanced for a strategy game.

I as more concerned over the question of players understanding what's going on under the hood; to avoid posts like "This game is full of bugs my mana regeneration rate keeps changing!" I think as long as it was explained well it could work though.

Computers can handle a simple formula like this easily enough it's making sure all the players understand what's happening and that it's a design decision not a bug.

I like this idea, I think having shards guarded by elementals of the appropriate type is a good idea, making it more of a challenge to grab them especially ealry game.

actually i really don't think that will happen. if a mana system (either personal or global) is well designed and balanced then players will very rarely have zero or max mana. instead they will reach an input/output equilibrium. this will be at a low point in times of strife and a high point in times of plenty. within the sweet zone where you want faction mana to hover, the rate or regen will be fairly consistent. and if people are having fun and finding the game intuitive, they won't notice.

and yes, shards should be things you have to search and fight for, not handed to you at the beginning of the game (in the majority of cases). on that i think most of us can agree. if you need a way to guarantee a decent starting pool of mana, make a separate, one per civ building for this.