NATURE Realm

[Arnuz]

In a way I feel left out - I never get to see this stuff playing at impossible :D (cos if you see that stuff, you've lost)

I should probably try a worse strategy at an easier setting.

Although ideally we could nerf the top strategies and then we'd be able to nerf the AI cheating too.

[zitro1987]

To follow along the theme of nature slowing/halting movement of units (web, entangle), it would be nice to add an effect to the boring 'ice bolt', sacrificing a bit of damage, but slowing down the unit by 1 or 2 movement points (or all the way down to 1 but never zero) for the rest of the battle.

[Seravy]

This realm has one even greater offender on the "unfun, player can't use spells" category than Sorcery's Suppress Magic, and that is Nature's Wrath.
While you are free to use cheap spells, you can't use the big, most relevant ones which is not very fun. Admittedly, there are good strategies that work without big spells, and we've made NW easy to dispel and less frequent to recast, but we might still want to rethink this spell.
(it's also unfair in a way because Nature wizards are unaffected.)

[Nelphine]

I think this is even less impactful than time stop. While it may be a big factor when it does occur, it does so very rarely. I only recall facing it once, and I was using a strategy it didn't bother a lot. Suppress magic hurts everyone - you can avoid using big spells, but you always need little spells.

In general, as with time stop, I would avoid fixing things that don't come that rarely. And unlike time stop, the human can stop it without literally not playing,so while time stop I would suggest the ai just never use, I would leave nw completely alone.

[Seravy]

One problem is, if the Sorcery wizard has Suppress Magic and steals Nature's Wrath, the net result is, you can't cast cheap nor expensive spells. You can only dispel and hope it won't be recast, and you might even need to dispel 2 copies of NW for it. (what's worse it might get you into a war with the Sorcery wizard which you don't want in this case, attacking the Nature wizard is the priority.)

Also, my opinion is you can avoid using little spells (by then you already buffed cities and ok, summoning circle and spirit hurts but can live without them in the endgame) but you always need the big spells (if you don't get your rare summon or artifact, what is going to fight? Normal units are obsolete by that time and said Nature wizard is probably sending stacks that contain 2-4 random very rare creatures.)

[Nelphine]

I consider small buffs or city buffs always important. But, different gameplay. Anyway, yes it is possible a mono sorcery wizard who is at full strength, and a strong nature wizard also exists, will dominate. I'm OK with that. You yourself typically say there shouldn't be that many powerful wizards left at the end, especially a sorcery one. I don't think that needs to change.

[Seravy]

You yourself typically say there shouldn't be that many powerful wizards left at the end, especially a sorcery one.  I don't think that needs to change.

That's true. It was party Hadriex's fault - he only controlled about 1/3 of the Arcanus plane in 1420 (he lost his main stack twice in lairs, and had an early war with lizardmen so...) and there were 3 wizards still alive and more powerful than him.

[zitro1987]

The suppress magic + nature's wrath combo sounds horrific. Maybe Nature's wrath can be re-evaluated at having its strength determined by the cost of the spell.

Original: Chance of earthquake effects from 8% if 303+ cost
Alternate: Chance of earthquake effects to 2% at 203 plus 2% per additional 100 cost (the 8% would therefore be for spells costing 503-602)

In other words, the destruction formula is smoother on a scale. Two spells costing 350 would cause less damage than one 700 cost spell instead of twice as much damage.

[Seravy]

I realized there is a WAAAY bigger problem with Nature's Wrath than just being unfun to play against.
It discourages the other AI from summoning big things, meaning less doomstacks for everyone. Of course, other AI will dispel it but then what do we have? A spell everyone wants to dispel immediately and is never in effect for a longer amount of time?
Neither is very good for the game.
In fact it's one of the two spells where the AI had to consider an exception and dispel it even from allies and at highest priority.

So we might want to consider triggering it on something that's not spellcasting.

[Nelphine]

That is a very valid point. My only issue is that it's very similar to meteor storm, doomsday, Armageddon, (and to a lesser extent) suppress magic. These 5 are all meant to be HUGE game changing I win spells. I don't see any of them as being drastically different in end result, even if the details are different (and nature's wrath is the most immediate obvious one).

So, I think a change won't be a bad thing, but it needs to keep the spell in that same category of awesome. Realistically, I think any of those 5, is really designed for the last 1v1 against a powerful AI. Yes it CAN bother other AI, but by the time these spells are in play, the expectation is there is only one serious AI threat. So I'm not sure its a serious issue. (And when the human uses it against that last AI, I think it IS an awesome feeling to know the AI is highly limited.)