LIFE Realm

[Nelphine]

Guardian spirit: cost 60, and no longer provides meld protection. However, it instead gives heavenly light to the node (including the combat bonus, and the extra power production.)

Healing charge: renamed to exaltation, and now rare tier.

Stream of life:
Now uncommon tier, 50% extra research cost, 200 casting cost.

Unsure if exaltation, Lionheart, or invulnerability had any change in casting cost.

Tranquility: renamed enlightenment. Research bonus increased to 2 per population. Also adds 10 experience per turn to heroes. (Unsure if this is an addition to normal or instead of normal.)

Life force: lowered casting cost, but not sure exact. I know its the same as enlightenment. Power bonus increased to 1 per population.

Consecration: cost reduced to 100.

[Catwalk]

Updated all of those, thanks.

[muxecoid]

I placed an item with lionheart on my hero. He survived a fight with 2 hp. He showed as full in the unit list panel and as 1 hp in right click info. He did not regen until I unequipped and re-equipped the lionheart item. Is it a bug?

[Seravy]

This is the already fixed "ghost unit" bug, where a unit ends up with negative remaning health when their buff is removed. The unit heals as normal, but you don't see it happen until the visible health goes above 1.
In this case it's triggered because Item Lion Heart only applies in combat. Maybe I should check again if that can be fixed or not, but either way it has no effect on the unit itself - unless hit by an overland spell like Blizzard, in which case it'll probably die.

[zitro1987]

Playing with life can bring very underwhelming very rares:
*I find it strange that the very rare 15000rp 'call to arms' with massive 70 cost does not even grant magic weapons to the 0xp unit. I find the spell extremely weak this late into the game due to this magic weapon omission. It's also highly possible it costs more than 70 due to that divine order spell if playing life.
*having the very rare slot used by 'consecration' is generally disappointing due to its very situational nature. Only in certain games I will need to spend 9000rp instead of relying on the occasional disenchant spell.
- at the very least, the casting cost could be small. It needs to be overpowered for what it counters.
- it could also be rare, bringing an opportunity to bring Exaltation up to very rare with a higher healing effect (once you get to v.rare balance can be distorted)



on a similar but 'death' note, the eternal night global's effect on religious buildings is not very impressive for the effort to research it. I would prefer it cuts the mana power by 3/4 instead of 1/2.

[Seravy]

As it's a summoned unit, it'll count as a Life creature and will bypass weapon immunity. It does not need magic weapons (albeit that would raise its damage output, I don't think it's necessary. Remember, combat summoning is something Life is bad at!)

Consecration counters powerful other (rare and) very rare spells - it's situational but when it matters, it's amazing. Making it easier to get would reduce the value of those other spells.

[Nelphine]

I agree with Zitro about call to arms. I don't care that life is bad at summons, the unit it summons is worse than almost anything the life player is using. You'll never use call to arms, you'll just use raise dead or healing. 5hp back on a strong unit for 15 mana or a crap unit for 70+ mana? No contest. The only thing call to arms does is give you battle presence, but life has virtually no spells to use this with. So to make use of it, you need to be multirealm, and both summon zombie and summon centaur are more effective for their casting cost; as are summon phantom beast, and summon fire elemental. So if you're multitrealm, you won't use call to arms anyway as you'll have a better combat summon.

Its a useless spell. (I also would hate to see it at the rare level for life. They aren't meant to have combat summons. Either buff the paladins, or remove the spell.) 


On the other hand consecration is amazing, and I'm completely on seravys side. Sure in some games you can just not research it, but the number of games you don't need it is exceedingly rare (assuming 4 wizards is standard). Heck I'm playing a game where all my chaos/death opponents are peaceful, and I STILL miss having consecration.

[zitro1987]

That's a good argument for a realm being balanced on a type of spell, but not for utilization of very rare space. It's probably the closest to mediocre spell in your mod (it might actually be mediocre), and it really stands out when it is very rare.

For this level of rarity, it might be less frustrating to keep realm weak on a type of spell by exclusion, as opposed to purposely inserting a new spell that is inferior to other realms rares. I'm not interested in boosting it after all.

It is hard to argue the spell is good or of much use.
-most likely costs more to divine order
-no synergy with crusade (it's summoning), tho at least holy arms helps it
-1 turn delay to the +1 to all stats effect,
-damage output of unit is utterly pathetic at 1.8/fig on turn 1 (2.1/fig once holy bonus kicks in) at this point
+unit is fairly durable and mobile, has last-resort city defense utilities, tho other realms do much better at this.
+the holy bonus is not bad, tho angel and archangel do it better

Have you considered having the slot for a powerful different type of life spell?



Note: consecration is kind of good. I did not mean to imply it is mediocre. It does after all protect against things like 'final wave' and 'meteor storm' and 'call the void' that are not technically enchantments after more thought, so I need to learn to use it better. I'll drop it as a request.

[Seravy]

. The only thing call to arms does is give you battle presence,

That's exactly what it is for, and it's the only such spell in the entire realm.
As for what to use it for, well, buffs. A paladin with Invulnerability, Lionheart, some heals, maybe a Prayer or High Prayer can destroy pretty big enemy armies on its own.
This isn't a spell to improve the strength of the realm, it's one that fills in for its weakness. And it's VERY good at it. I dare to say it's the best combat summon in the game (even though Life should have the worst). It's fast and armor piercing like an Air Elemental, but it's reasonably durable unlike that, it's multi-figure so works well with buffs, it detects invisibility, I don't see what your problem with it is. It's an amazing combat summon. Not even Nature has something this good. Expensive? Of course it is. It's better than the 50 mana summons in the game.

If you have enough military presence everywhere and don't feel the need to have a combat summon, you don't need to research it. There are 9 other very rares to choose from.

(also, having "miss" very rares contributes to the player wanting more books in a realm by weakening "few book" picks. I thought you both wanted that?)

Have you considered having the slot for a powerful different type of life spell?

I never felt the need for Life to have any other new spell, except summoning. Their spells are that good already and do everything you could want that is reasonable for the realm to do.

[zitro1987]

I can't possibly think we won't have military presence late in the game of a handful of mid-tier units per city unless I'm losing the game (and if so, a paladin won't save me, other spells might save me turn game around).

the argument of using the skill (including several turns) to buff a single mediocre unit of 0-to hit 7 armor-piercing melee and 6 armor is in most situations voided. That mana should be used to buff the strongest unit you have there, which with magic weapon and experience, may not be your paladin.

The illusion immunity is a minor bonus, though we have true sight. Not enough to consider it above mediocre, or 'best combat summon in the game'

To me, it serves a similar purpose as if we had a very rare lightning bolt spell in nature or life. It is mediocre late in game, overly expensive, has little synergy, and attempts to fill a gap of a realm. The sad thing is that it might still be a better spell in theory compared to call to arms.

The idea of encouraging very rares with more books is to make very rares good (ideally, with good synergy as well), not to lessen the chance of getting stuck only with bad ones. Fortunately, life is possibly the realm with best within-realm very rare synergy and begs to have 'specialist' chosen and minimum of 8 books, so I'm not gonna argue for 10 pages about it.

That doesn't change the feeling that this spell is surprisingly weak and thematically out of place. I can think of somewhat more life-relevant variations of a spell without changing its name.