[eMOD] Celerity spell -> Non-permanent buff

Note that this is completely overpowered if you are playing Procipinee (and, also, destiny's gift is getting severely nerfed in 1.1)

[If you are having fun with this mod, that is great of course, but I thought you should know.]

Well, it is true that with no maintenance cost, it is pretty hot, but you still have to reach the required spell level first.  It's a lot less overpowered than the original Celerity, which can stack forever with itself.

No offense, but with 2 mana regen, in order to make up for 6 init worth of mana (1500mana)... you'd have to have it on for 625 turns... I don't think I've ever played a game that long. It's a pretty big buff unless you have nearly infinite mana. With that much mana you might as well toss around volcanos.

It still costs 250 mana to cast as before, but it gives you 6 points in Initiative, not 1.  You need some sort of up-front cost otherwise you could cast it right before battle and then dispel it before the maintenance kicks in.

The real advantage is that you go into battle with it already on, as opposed to Haste which must be cast on the tactical map.  So if you like you can make your first move something other than Haste self.

But Procipinee does not pay maintenance costs (though, granted, only herself or a designated champion receives this benefit).

I took that into account. It took 250 mana to cast before, x6 = 1500, -250 mana now = 1250, /2 per turn = 625 turns.

So it takes a while for it to cost the same as the original spell cast six times, it is impossible to predict how long such a spell will be maintained in an average game, so I set the maintenance at a reasonable value, but not as cheap as some of the other buffs that are just 1 mana a turn.

If you look at my original comment, it was a response to your "It's a lot less overpowered than the original Celerity" statement. There's no way that this can be considered a less overpowered version if the benefits are higher. It's true that you can't stack it on one unit, but you don't have to use it all on one unit. Even if you have nothing else to use your mana on, if you have 1500 mana, what's to prevent you from buffing 6 units and roll people? Or 5 people and still have 20+ turns of maintenance... You essentially just multiplied its power by a factor of 5, or 6.

The original Celerity isn't all that overpowering, as with most spells of that type, it is meant as a mana drainer. If you have so much mana so as waste it on Celerity to make it so OP (more than 6 casts?), then you're probably at a point where it doesn't even matter (you've essentially won and is just mopping up).

Where as, if you just give someone 6 init right off the bat... that, I'd consider as pretty OP.

Whether it's draining mana every turn, or just every time you cast it, makes no real difference.  However, as a buff it is much easier to see where your mana is going.

There's also the fact that there is no provision for casting the same spell repeatedly.  It's open spell book, cast spell, spell is cast, repeat until mouse hand is sore.

The main reason why I find the original Celerity to be overpowered is because of the permanence of the effect.  And mana is not that hard to come by.  One AI opponent in my second-to-last game managed to get themselves 336 million of it.  Admittedly, that's got to be a bug, but you can see there that there is the potential for the spell to be abused to the point where the game ceases to be fun.

Anyway, I freely admit that I may be way off in my assessment of how powerful it is, I haven't got that far in my test game to find out, and as with any mod it's the testing that really tells whether it is overpowered or not.  I'm pretty sure that it could be, stacked up with the bonus from Tactician (for example) but I'm not sure if I will notice because I tend to maximise my unit initiative as a matter of course.  It will also be interesting to see if the AI manages to make use of it.

6 initiative for 250 mana is extremely powerful.  If it was 500 to cast, and 5 maintenance, I would still cast it. 

Well if you set it too high then you're back to the situation where you'd rather cast haste and waste a turn in tactical combat than bleed mana through the nose.  Haste is only 5 mana a pop, you know, even if it does grant a smaller bonus.

Um... there's nothing stopping you from using both of them. In fact, due to how init works, it's usually better to use both AND slow your opponent.

In the early game Haste is a boon, and it is dead cheap.  Later on though, as you have more units in an army, it's not so useful because your units are mounted, with bonus moves at the start, they're impulsive, they're in larger groups, and as a result many engagements barely last a couple of rounds because your units make more of an impact in their first move than they did in five rounds in the early game.  So in that situation I might Slow the enemy down, but there's no way I would waste a move pushing my Init any higher.

This really depends on how you have built up your forces.

Often, late game, I have detached my sovereign from the rest of my armies, and I rely on high initiative to keep my sovereign alive.  Here, haste and slow can be crucial.  (But note also that haste and slow cost like 2 or maybe even 1 mana by then.)