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Raise / Lower land Mana Cost-- Too High or Too Low

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Raise / Lower land Mana Cost-- Too High or Too Low

from Elemental Forums

Looking at the changelog of .984 recently there is a change to the raise and lower land cost. People are saying that at the low low price of 5 mana changing the landscape is too low a cost for the power. But some people think that 50 mana is too high a price.

The argument for the price change to be lower is the fact that when you cast lower / raise land it usually isn't once it is several times in a row in order to do anything useful with the spell. For example a land bridge to get off you secluded island-ish start requires you to cast it at least 4 times. That is 200 mana and that is expensive. But is 20 mana too low for such a feat?

I would go for the happy medium of 10 mana per cast to be appropriate for the spell. What are your thoughts on the matter?

23,138 views 31 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kongdej, reply 26
Now that we are supposed to spam the raise/lower land, I hope there comes more attention to how it looks, thats why I currently have no problem with it

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I doubt any of that is changing.

If the UI isn't going to properly show hills lowered when a city is built, (it is still a hill where the tile stats are concerned but looks completely flat land), I doubt more time is going to be put into polishing land raise/lower spells.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top


It looks like the raise lower land spells at 5 mana a cast will be a tool used during the campaign, so i imagine they will want to spend some time polishing it off.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GFireflyE, reply 26

Quoting Kongdej, reply 26Now that we are supposed to spam the raise/lower land, I hope there comes more attention to how it looks, thats why I currently have no problem with it

Sincerely
~ Kongdej


I doubt any of that is changing.

If the UI isn't going to properly show hills lowered when a city is built, (it is still a hill where the tile stats are concerned but looks completely flat land), I doubt more time is going to be put into polishing land raise/lower spells.

I pretty much figured, its just a sad story to me v_v

But I was trying to be all positive.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Maybe a happy medium to this might be to have the first transformation cost 10 mana and each transformation after that add 10 mana.  This way the spell gets more expensive as you use it more.  First would be 10 mana, second 20, third 30, and so on.

Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top

I think 50 mana is reasonable. Not only because the feeling of being powerfull, but because IT IS POWERFULL. I mean, making that terraforming should cost a lot of mana.

Paying 50 mana gets sure you will think twice when using it, but the most important is that it is a reasonable quantity of mana for the effects of the spell: making land from the sea? Lowering a mountain? For less than 50 mana? Ok, you can reduce to 45, but less than that is nonsense.

Apart from that, is the strategical use of it...to tell you the truth, I did not think about it. But since there are no boats or sea-transports, to build a sea or mountain defense surrounding player empire gives to much advantage...the only way to avoid it (or not over use it) is by paying a lot of mana.

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

it is a bug that you can currently use raise land to turn a hill into a mountain (which we will be fixing). We like the idea of people being clever and opening up new routes around the map using a cheap terraforming spell, but we don't like the idea of creating impassible areas easily (slow moving is fine)