Warding ability

[Seravy]

Another idea that was sitting on my todo list for a while.

What?
A passive ability for units that makes the tile they are standing on untargetable by hostile overland spells.
(definitely not in combat though, that would be almost as good as magic immunity)

Why?
Because it's difficult to protect ores or other resources as is. Your only options are diplomacy (not go to war with anyone that has chaos books), denial of scouting, and corrupting your own resource until the end of the war then cleaning it up.

Why not?
Because it could also protect armies from Fire Storm, or cities from city curses. However we can easily circumvent this if we make the ability only affect "terrain altering spells".

Which unit?
I see several possible viable routes.
1. None. It would be a mod exclusive ability that's not on units by default.

Otherwise, Life benefits by far the most from the spell (as it relies on normal units a lot) and Nature the second most (as it can create them by Trransmute) which means...

2. Fire Giant. Chaos is already kinda assigned to be the realm to protect resources through Corruption and an uncommon creature in the same realm makes sense, this being the only one that wields magic already (fireball spell).

And finally the not so good options :

3. Unicorns. Traditionally associated with protection and being reliant of clean, pure environments. However this is bad for game balance, and should be avoided as it's a Life spell.
4. Water Elemental. Makes very little sense why they'd do it but it's the only uncommon Sorcery creature and Sorcery is the "protection from bad magic" realm.

Of course, not implementing this ability is also a possible outcome as we've already discussed many times that the destruction of these resources is intended to happen frequently as an indirect balancing mechanic (ultimately the ores are a major luck factor in the game, they shouldn't be too reliable and should require effort to keep protected)

[Anskiy]

I think it would be cool as a new unit ability, but I would not add it to any of the current summons. At best I could see it going on Sprites, but you don't want to give it to Nature by default so whatever. I would definitely appreciate it being made available to modders though!

[GMBarak]

In my opinion the general rule should be: a rare spell should be able to counter an uncommon spell a very rare spell should be able to counter a rare spell and so on...
so maybe we can grant "elemental" or "guardian" or "ward" trait to some of the rare summons which disables spells on the tile they sit on? casting cost and maintenance cost for that rare summon should also be high to give balance. also, maybe add countering ability to some of the rare city spells?
The reason IMO is that a research development path should be one of the viable strategies.

[Slingers]

1. Such an ability would be used in mods. I'm hoping to find some time later this year to add Myrran Titans as a neutral race that cannot be selected at the start of the game. Titan Wardens who bash their opponents with a tree! But before that, I'd like to finish some things I've already started, like race-specific buildings. Some neutral dwarven cities may have a Dragon Hoard as almost non-destructible source of Adamantium that cannot be built. I guess things like that wouldn't change overall gameplay that much.

2. Fire Giants would do if an overall game-changing element is desired. Warden also means fireman. How about giving this ability to all giants?

3. Guardian Spirit?

4. For Sorcery: Would it make sense to add Warding through a unit or city enchantment? Philosophers Stone could protect ores from destruction in the catchment area of a city and even lose the economy part (Any Monument or Linking Tower in the city is 50% more effective.) for that. That would be easier to handle than positioning individual units, on the other hand maybe less fun?

5. Would it be worth teaching the AI to place Warding units on ores?