DEATH Realm

[Seravy]

I think I have an idea. Rather than trying to make something that does not work for the AI work for it anyway, what if we change the spell a little?

Berserk
Enchanted unit has doubled melee attack. Enchanted unit has zero defense against melee, thrown and breath attacks.

This comes with several advantages :
-Zero defense applies last so no sort of buff, not even "Elemental Armor" will override it - currently a bunch of stuff adds defense after berserk reduced it to zero. Original game made berserk set defense to -20 to counter that, which...kinda works but messes up the display, instead of showing greyed shields, it shows nothing at all.
-AI friendly : Unit will only suffer from the drawback if it managed to participate in melee combat
-Convenient for the player without any major advantage : Player would cast berserk only when in range to perform a melee attack anyway, so ranged defense is not a big difference
-Makes casting it overland much less risky as well
-Hard to abuse : Berserk only increases melee damage of the unit so if the unit stays in range it isn't helping them to have the buff.

How about it?
(we can do any other similar condition, think stuff like reversed bless or missile immunity, we can manipulate defense and even resistance freely towards any attack type or realm if melee only is too powerful)

...meanwhile someone in mail said pretty much this "it can still be killed by ranged attacks if the AI used it on anything and the human player can take advantage of the change"...I don't know then. As is, this spell is unplayable for the AI. No matter what I do, it's always the human player who is in control of which unit is attacking what in the combat, and this spell is useless unless you are the one doing that. (aside from the "close enough to hit this turn" scenario in which case the AI already uses it)

One thing about combat berserk casting.
Right now, the spell is classified as type "B", spells that are used when at an advantage. That ensures the AI won't lose otherwise winnable but close battles by sacrificing units...but it also prevents it from using the spell as a suicide move when the battle is unwinnable.
Changing it to "D" - use when losing - would reverse this : The AI would lose more battles that could have been turned around, and lose the ability to press advantage by forcing the trade of 1 unit for another., but would kill more stuff in unwinnable battles.
Not sure what to do, both option seems bad. Ultimately, this spell is just bad for the AI for so many reasons I can't even list them all. You kinda need to be able to know the outcome of the battle in advance to be able to tell if it's safe to use or not and there is no way an AI is ever going to be that smart.

[Nelphine]

I would never let it be cast overland by AI (except on things with 2 or lower defense to start). I definitely think that AI should use it a lot more aggressively on non important battles. The AI can afford to lose 20 battles for every one they win, because they have far, far more units. If they can take out 1 or 2 units per battle, they generally come out ahead, even if they lose the whole battle. Then, on important battles, only let them cast it on units that are 2 or lower defense to start (or whatever an earth elemental has. That is the perfect unit to use it on so its a great cut off point for important battles and overland use above.)

It still shouldn't be a top priority spell (like prayer or black prayer etc).

Also note, I don't care about regeneration for this. That combination impplies you are on the winning side AND losing units. For the AI, thats fairly rare - and when it happens, bezerk will almost never actually help them win more. Bezerk should be 'oh look, the human is attacking me with his doom stack. lets kill one of them, and lose. and then repeat that 9 times. oh yay, the doom stack is dead!'

I'm also very much against the change proposed. The human can abuse that far far too easily. If you wanted to do that, I would suggest that bezerk also causes resistance to be set to 0 vs melee attacks/thrown/breath. Even then, I don't think it's a good idea. But it's at least a LITTLE harder to abuse. Nah, still too easy. Bezerk should never ever leave the unit with defense against ranged. Humans can abuse that to no end.

[Seravy]

One last idea :
What if we drop the 0 defense entirely and replace it with something else? By something else I mean either "unit takes X damage per combat turn" or "unit dies at end of combat", probably the latter.

These would still leave it a good combination with regeneration which I definitely want to preserve, but it's pretty hard to abuse, no matter what you lose the unit - unless it regenerates.

The problem with that is, if the unit does regenerate, it's way more powerful than otherwise.

Alternately we can try to come up with another effect that provides similar functionality but is balanced without a drawback.

Maybe "Enchanted unit gains +50% melee attack (but a minimum of 5) and cannot heal naturally?"

Or how about "Enchanted unit moves and attacks automatically". That is no drawback to the AI, but sure is for the human player because they can't control the unit and it won't attack what they want it to.

I think this might work well :
"Enchanted unit has double melee attack strength. Enchanted unit will move and use melee attacks on its own and cannot use ranged attacks or cast spells. Enchanted unit cannot heal naturally."

[zitro1987]

I think this might work well :
"Enchanted unit has double melee attack strength. Enchanted unit will move and use melee attacks on its own and cannot use ranged attacks or cast spells. Enchanted unit cannot heal naturally."

That's pretty good. Are you planning on making it overland-only? If also allowed in battle, it needs a reasonably high casting cost and 0 upkeep

[Nelphine]

Um. Still extremely abusable. Imagine for instance, you have, oh, paladins. Or anything else with magic immunity and a decent melee score. Or a strong hero. Or anything that you just go and kill things with and don't worry about it's survival that much.

You don't really care what it actually attacks. With that attack strength it's going to destroy anything it encounters anyway. I know if I had an overland version of that I'd be all over it. (My 'standard' halberdiers now have strength 22 instead of 11. I'll take that any day, even if I can't control them - they're already throw away units as it is.)

I'd rather have a niche spell than something that's much better than Haste.

[Seravy]

Um. Still extremely abusable.  Imagine for instance, you have, oh, paladins. Or anything else with magic immunity and a decent melee score.  Or a strong hero. Or anything that you just go and kill things with and don't worry about it's survival that much.

You don't really care what it actually attacks. With that attack strength it's going to destroy anything it encounters anyway. I know if I had an overland version of that I'd be all over it. (My 'standard' halberdiers now have strength 22 instead of 11. I'll take that any day, even if I can't control them - they're already throw away units as it is.)

I'd rather have a niche spell than something that's much better than Haste.

I think you have a point. How about the same but with +50% instead of double?

Or...drop the whole thing and give the realm a completely different spell that can achieve the same purpose but in an AI friendly way.
Purpose being :
-Something that allows sacrificing units to enforce losses on the other side
-But combines well with regeneration by preventing said loss
-And capable of damaging high armor and resistance units in a reliable way

..except the first one of those already implies the AI cannot use it properly as there is no way for an AI to make a decision of sacrificing troops correctly.

Okay, what about :
"Enchanted unit has Doom in melee combat and becomes undead permanently"
or alternately
"Enchanted unit has Illusion in melee combat and becomes undead permanently"
I'd keep combat casting available, but the undead trait stays on it even after the combat is over so that retains intended drawback.

-It sacrifices the unit because it'll never get healed which enforces losses
-But regeneration can still heal them
-Capable of countering high armor units reliably

So it matches all 3 intended criteria...but it's also AI friendly because the unit isn't "sacrificed" immediately but on the long term...and the AI can afford that.
Problem I see is, "becomes undead" grants a bunch of unwanted immunities which power up the spell quite a bit - cold immunity is not a big deal, but illusions immunity is very good, poison and death immunity are also useful.  However this is the only way to retain the "cannot heal" effect past combat.
(one can argue you have plenty of illusions immunity as a Death wizard though)

Other problem it makes the unit vulnerable to exorcise and banish, the exact things regeneration is bad against...although that might actually make that combo more balanced.



Defence ignoring damage is quite powerful however. Maybe the criteria we have for the spell, dealing damage to high armor units, is broken to begin with? Maybe such a spell should not exist?
If we decide on that, we can always use Berserk's slot to return Black Wind. If we do that however, I think we should change it to at least roll per unit, not per figure.

We can also go with doom in melee+undead+must attack automatically.

[Nelphine]

Hurting high armour targets is fine. But because of how strong it is, I do feel it requires a major drawback. Which means its niche, whether for human or AI. (Which means the original spell is fine. How often do humans use it against ranged attackers? Not more often than the AI should.)

The question I believe should be asked is: do we want such a niche spell to exist?

If not, then go back and design a completely new spell. Don't worry about whether the benefit by itself should exist.

Personally I'm OK with bezerk being super niche and staying unchanged as long as AI learns just how nice it is.

[Seravy]

How often do humans use it against ranged attackers?

The humans get a choice in this when they cast the spell. But they also get the choice when the AI casts it. If they see berserked units on the overland map, they'll attack them using ranged units. And they are likely to garrison their cities with them, too, if they appear more than once on the attacking side. So this reasoning cannot be applied to the AI. It does not have the capability to avoid using the spell against ranged attack. (I mean the overland version. Combat has...other problems that prevent the AI from making the correct decision, see previous posts)

The question I believe should be asked is: do we want such a niche spell to exist?

No. But all other realms have ways to deal with a high armor unit. Ways even the AI can use.

Life wizards can buff their units so much that they're effectively as good as berserk but with double armor instead of none.
Chaos wizards have Armor Piercing and Doom.
Sorcery wizards have Illusion.
Nature wizards have Crack's Call.
but Death wizards...have none of the above. Oh, wait! They have the new spell, Wave of Despair! Unless the entire enemy stack has 20+ armor, they can pick off weaker ones and then kill the rest with this.

I think there is absolutely no need to Berserk anymore.

AI learns just how nice it is

This is not going to happen. It's just not possible. Basically, the AI is not smart enough to be able to foretell if it is putting units at risk or not, neither that the combat is going to be won or lost with or without the spell precisely enough.

If not, then go back and design a completely new spell.

Okay, let's see...

1. We bring back Black Wind, as an uncommon, hitting units instead of figures. Having access to it that early makes it viable, as resistance is lower at that time. Isn't a very good spell for the AI though.
Or we do something completely new. I think with the new rare nuke, we don't need any more direct damage. Which means we could...
2. Have a buff. Something like Black Channels that grants undead, but much better benefits than the original. This retains synergy with Regeneration, which I really like and would be nice to keep. Death is not really a buffing realm but I guess with that drawback it is suitable.
3. Have a buff that grants "Shadow", the weapon ability. Would be nicer if I could make it do "Shadow Breath" which counts as Death realm instead of just "Thrown" but that's probably not possible. I mean I could just take an arbitrary new number for a new attack type but then I'd have to code in the effect of it everywhere there is a check for a unit's ranged type which is...a hell of a lot of places.
4. Have some sort of a unit curse. That would match the realm and it actually doesn't have all that many of these. Problem I see with this one, all the options are pretty much covered by other realms. We have def and res down in Mind Storm. We have attack down in Weakness, Shatter and all three in Warp Creature. We have Hit and To Def down in Vertigo and To Def down in Warp Reality. We also have To Hit down in Terror. And that's about all the stats a unit has. We also have "zero movement" and "loses flight" in Web, Black Sleep and Stasis. Plus, I rather not add a new "resist or" spell, and unresistable limits what can be added a lot, good stuff would be overpowered.
5. New creature, city spell or global enchantment are not possible because all of those are in use.


I think resource denial is pretty well covered at the point. Combat  direct damage spells are, too. Spells that target wizards on the other hand...we removed 2 out of the 3 that did exist. Which leaves...

6. Bring back Subversion. I think it's overpowered with a functioning diplomacy system. Kinda wins the game on its own, being able to make someone fight the entire world.
7. Have something new. Make the target lose fame? gold? slow down their research? None of these I would ever use as a player...we removed casting skill because it was impossible to do in a balanced way so that is out.
8. Add something that affects the targeted wizard's empire. "Target wizard loses 3 random nonhero normal units to desertion" or "Target wizard loses 3 random buildings" or "Target wizard is affected by a negative event next turn"

...actually that would be fun. "Misfortune : Target wizard is affected by a negative event next turn". Don't think I can do it...and since meteor and rebellion are included, it would be pretty overpowered, too.

We can also keep berserk but in a weaker, balanced form. Such as "Enchanted unit gains +5 melee and must attack automatically each turn".

and one more idea

9. Unit curse. All damage dealt to target unit is irrecoverable. Problem with this one, it's not AI friendly. The AI has no way to predict which unit it can damage, let alone, kill, and without that it's a waste of mana to cast. So I think it's also not good...

Anyone has an idea for a new spell?

[Nelphine]

To be honest I loved black channels and used to play troll death for black channels all the time. I'd like to see something like that.

Also, being able to make an overland square impassable (don't change image but make it count as an ocean tile) would be neat. Or you could change the image to like a rolling fog or something. Or count as a volcano tile but it would do damage to anyone who walked/stayed in it (ally or friendly) and can't target squares that already have units in them.

Not sure if the AI could use that though.

I could see a mass unit debuff (where other realms have single, death gets mass):

All enemy units are randomly afflicted by a virulent plague - a) no resist roll, weak debuff; b-f) resist roll, debuffs different stats.

Black wind works nicely as the name for the terrain one, or the in combat one.

[Seravy]

I could see a mass unit debuff (where other realms have single, death gets mass):

Would be interesting but they already have that in Black Prayer (- to melee, ranged, defense and resistance) and Terror (minus to hit, cannot act). Chaos also has it in Warp Reality, and while Mass Invisibility is technically a buff, it also penalizes all attackes by -1 To Hit because Invisibility does that. Oh, and there are Entangle (-2 move) and Darkness (-1 to all Life creatures) too.
We actually have this pretty well covered as far as minor debuffs go. Major debuffs are not an option, I don't want a resistance roll and hitting all is too good if the debuff is powerful as well.

Overland roadblock is a very big no. AI can't use it AND cannot go around it effectively either. Easy to abuse as well. Put these around their capital and voila, anything they summon just disappears to no space.

I'm also leaning towards Black Channels.
How about these stats?
+4 melee
+2 ranged (including magic)
+4 armor
+2 resistance
undead

Cost : 125 overland, or 25 in combat. Undead stays even if used in combat, stats don't, so you do pay the price for an otherwise really overpowered one time buff. Not sure if I like the name "Black Channels" tho.

...as a side effect it could grant Thrown 2 if the unit has no ranged attack, so a weaker shadow effect gets included? Or we want to keep Death realm away from easy access to anti-flying? 3 out of 5 realms already have common or uncommon ways to deal with it, so maybe letting Death get that too would be a bad idea... (and most of their summons fly or are ranged if really needed)