*shrug* i detest realms where i have to summon creatures all the time (I greatly dislike nature for instance). I love buffing. Sorcery is excellent, with a mix of curses (spell blast, stasis), city buffs, unit buffs, and globals. To each their own.
The AI one-shotting advanced 1-2 figure units (e.g. doom bats, stag beetles, etc) with focus magic cockactrices just feels so awkward, unbalanced, and frustrating. I can't even imagine the current version being balanced for focus magic/resist magic cockactrice strategies - you're guaranteed cockactrices (or with higher books guaranteed to have it first), pick 3 sorcery for the 2 enchantments and you're set.
*I think 'stoning touch' with its icon should be fixed the same way immolation is fixed - not allowing ranged attacks to apply to a 'touch' as indicated by image. This is the most awkward and unbalanced case of focus magic I can think of that involves early spells.
*Life Drain doesn't imply face-to-face attack, so that one should be able to be taken advantage of.
*to balance out removing a strategy, I think non-ranged units should get a 4-power ranged shot, not a 3. It can allow more flexibility with adding ranged attacks to your halberdiers or early summons for example.
I actually think the problem is there are too few good combinations such as focus magic cockatrices; and all the good synergy comes from multi figure units. So the advanced one figure units would be good.. If the synergy combinations didn't exist. Basically there need to be more things like Lionheart that specifically work well with single figure units (and even Lionheart is much better with multi figure units due to the attack bonus.)
Single figure units are inherently better than multi-figure units. They can overcome armor better, they don't lose damage output when taking damage as no figures are lost, and they take less damage from "immolation" type effects.
In exchange, multi-figure units benefit more from buffing. I think that's fine as is. You can play one if you are doing a buff strategy and the other if you don't.
I tried playing focus magic cockatrices and they are not an overpowered strategy. I'm not going to change it. I had fights against them as well and it wasn't particularly powerful - they are medicore at best against multi-figure units and easy to disable with direct damage, dispelling, web, and ranged attacks.
Most good synergy appears between two spells. Synergy between spells and units is not a design goal, as units are far too accessible. (you can have all 14 races and all their units in the same game if you conquer cities)
Currently, Flying Fortress doesn't allow defenders to leave the city if they are not flying.
While this makes sense, it's not AI friendly. Great Wyrms, Behemoths, etc can get stuck unable to attack in the wizard's capital.
For now I've made the AI cast Flight or Wraith Form as a top priority spell in this case but that's not a perfect solution. If the garrison is weaker melee units against a weaker force, they'll still get stuck - the AI only does that if the target is a very strong unit. Also, casting Flight one at a time is not very effective against a ranged army - they can start by killing the flying unit.
So I propose three different kinds of other solutions :
1. Change Flying Fortress to grant "Flight" to all garrison units automatically (the same way mass invisibility grants invisibility). Considering there is enough power in the spell to raise a whole city, allowing individual units to fly as well should not be unusual.
The downsides of this?
-Teleporting units which were able to enter and attack units will be able to enter but not attack units anymore.
2. Change Flying Fortress to apply only to units trying to enter. This allows the AI units to leave but if they do for any reason, they can't go back. (stuff like ranged units moving back a tile can cause this to happen.)
3. Change Flying Fortress to apply only to enemy units. This way the AI can leave and return but unfortunately it won't be returning anyway because it's not that smart.
(also there seems to be a bug that lets the AI's great wyrms outside when they aren't supposed to be able to leave, this would deal with that too)
If I do 1, which should take priority?
Flight granted by FF or Web/Black Sleep removing it?
Those spells can't allow entry into the flying city, so I'm tempted to say FF should take priority and allow the unit to stay flying.
