Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Seravy]

Maybe it'll take more than one move. What if Wall of Darkness got moved to Common to replace Summon Zombie? Then move Wraithform to Uncommon and make a new rare spell for a combat summon? Summon Zombie is kind of redundant since Ghouls do the same thing (and at range, which is better).

Another idea I had: what if you could cast Life Drain on your own units as an out-of-battle instant in order to turn them Undead on purpose?

I don't think that would be worth using. I mean, ok they don't die to enemy Death spells but they cannot heal and are vulnerable to Life magic, a horrible deal. My main reason for removing Black Channels was that it wasn't worth doing it even with buffs included.

Moving Wall of Darkness to common is a good idea, although isn't that spell far too powerful to be a common? You could even take 2 Chaos, 2 Death and pick it along with Wall of Fire as starting commons which would pretty much make all your cities immune to all forms of early game attacks, both melee and ranged, with only a minimal amount of defenders needed.

Summon Zombie is, in my opinion, the current best common Death spell, removing it would weaken the realm. While Ghouls are a more permanent source of undead, casting skill limits their availability and they need to be moved to the location of battle. Zombies on the other hand use no overland skill and still generate undead for you every combat. They are essentially 2 free undead halberdiers for 20 mana crystals, no overland casting power needed once, while ghouls are a large investment that will generate more undead for you over a longer period of time, but aren't much of a help if you need reinforcements immediately.

If Wall of Darkness was common, Wraithform uncommon, and Terror rare, that could work, but I'm leaning towards just making Wraithform common instead.
In either case, I would need to buff Terror which I'm hesitating to do, at a higher resist penalty it would turn into another Entangle, and that is a really powerful very rare spell, but the greater problem is I don't want 2 spells that are so similar if they're both high rarity.

uhh this is hard to decide.
btw Wraith Form already has uncommon level research cost. Of course this does not make it show up for research faster but once it did show up, it's easy to get. It might be better to leave it as it is.

[ChongLi]

Wall of Darkness is pretty powerful but it's also situational and expensive at 150 mana overland. It may be extremely powerful along with Wall of Fire. Would it be possible to make the two exclusive: i.e. casting Wall of Darkness removes Wall of Fire and vice versa?

Hey, what about going all the way in the other direction and moving Wraithform to Very Rare? Then you could do something like have the unit become a Wraith version of itself: Life Steal, Weapon Immunity, Non-Corporeal, Death/Poison/Cold Immunity, no healing, vulnerability to Life spells etc.

Edit: Oh, and I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet in this thread but Aura of Majesty is practically a miniature Spell of Mastery.

[Seravy]

Wall of Darkness is pretty powerful but it's also situational and expensive at 150 mana overland. It may be extremely powerful along with Wall of Fire. Would it be possible to make the two exclusive: i.e. casting Wall of Darkness removes Wall of Fire and vice versa?

Hey, what about going all the way in the other direction and moving Wraithform to Very Rare? Then you could do something like have the unit become a Wraith version of itself: Life Steal, Weapon Immunity, Non-Corporeal, Death/Poison/Cold Immunity, no healing, vulnerability to Life spells etc.

I like the combo of the two walls, I just don't want it to be available too early and easily in the game. Once there are stronger single figure units around that don't get seriously hurt by Wall of Fire (or stuff that flies over it), the combo is not that overpowered.

Very Rare wraithform, well, that would kill the main purpose of the spell, being able to
-counter Entangle, Web, Crack's Call and Earthquake, so Nature in general, which nothing else in the game can
-counter weapon immunity in combat
-counter Reaper Slash and poison units
-counter armies not containing magical weapons
-Cross water on the overland map and/or move faster
None of these are stuff you would want at very rare level, by that time poison, weapon immunity, water movement etc are no longer relevant.
Life Steal might be, but both very rare summons already have it, it would make Death Knights kinda pointless. Being undead is more of a drawback than an advantage, and something that can be added to items should not do that ever (as undead heroes don't gain EXP on top of not healing). We could add extra stats on top but Death isn't really the realm that should be doing that, Life is.

Anyway, Wraithform grants a whole bunch of powerful effects that can be decisive even on their own, but all of them are situational which isn't suitable for a Very Rare. It's somewhat of a 5-in-1 package of common/uncommon effects for the price and research of one uncommon but in a rare slot which is fair because you do get 5 in 1. I believe the spell is fine as rare, it's just that it would be even more suitable for an uncommon as the individual effects are uncommon level.

"Edit: Oh, and I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet in this thread but Aura of Majesty is practically a miniature Spell of Mastery. "
You mean it's too powerful? Maybe it should be 1 relation point per turn again? That would be kinda slow though as game is pretty fast now.

[ChongLi]

I like the combo of the two walls, I just don't want it to be available too early and easily in the game. Once there are stronger single figure units around that don't get seriously hurt by Wall of Fire (or stuff that flies over it), the combo is not that overpowered.

That makes sense. I kinda like the idea of stacking both walls as well.

Very Rare wraithform, well, that would kill the main purpose of the spell, being able to
-counter Entangle, Web, Crack's Call and Earthquake, so Nature in general, which nothing else in the game can
-counter weapon immunity in combat
-counter Reaper Slash and poison units
-counter armies not containing magical weapons
-Cross water on the overland map and/or move faster
None of these are stuff you would want at very rare level, by that time poison, weapon immunity, water movement etc are no longer relevant.
Life Steal might be, but both very rare summons already have it, it would make Death Knights kinda pointless. Being undead is more of a drawback than an advantage, and something that can be added to items should not do that ever (as undead heroes don't gain EXP on top of not healing). We could add extra stats on top but Death isn't really the realm that should be doing that, Life is.

Anyway, Wraithform grants a whole bunch of powerful effects that can be decisive even on their own, but all of them are situational which isn't suitable for a Very Rare. It's somewhat of a 5-in-1 package of common/uncommon effects for the price and research of one uncommon but in a rare slot which is fair because you do get 5 in 1. I believe the spell is fine as rare, it's just that it would be even more suitable for an uncommon as the individual effects are uncommon level.

Yeah, it really seems like Wraithform should be Uncommon. What about rearranging it so that it's the first Rare spell in the list? Would that make it show up earlier?

The other thing I could think of would be to move Drain Power up to Rare. That spell is kind of self-defeating if you try to cast it a lot early, since you end up spending all your mana for very little gain unless you can get their mana to 0 before an attack.

You mean it's too powerful? Maybe it should be 1 relation point per turn again? That would be kinda slow though as game is pretty fast now.

Yeah, it's way too powerful. I just had a game where an Aggressive opponent was about to attack my capital and I managed to dissuade them for a few turns while Aura of Majesty did its thing. Not long after that I had secured an alliance that paved the way for me to conquer all of Myrror. I think it's not so much the fact that it improves relations quickly but that it does so continually, over time, causing all relations to trend toward max and effectively making you immune to attack. It would be much more balanced if it just applied a fixed relations bonus that went away when the spell stopped, akin to the way Just Cause works.

[ChongLi]

Alright, just encountered an AI bug. I had a town with 2 Dark Elf Spearmen and city walls get attacked by 3 neutral War Mammoths. The enemy just sat there for a few turns before fleeing, Why wouldn't they try to attack? They have Wall Crusher!

Edit: By the way, was it intentional to leave the move speed of War Mammoths at 2? They are one of the only Normal units not to have been sped up.

[Seravy]

What about rearranging it so that it's the first Rare spell in the list? Would that make it show up earlier?

It already is. Don't know how the research list is generated, Kryub made that code. I guess I should check it out.

That spell is kind of self-defeating if you try to cast it a lot early, since you end up spending all your mana for very little gain unless you can get their mana to 0 before an attack.

On impossible difficulty, the AI has so much mana crystals that it can be used to raise casting skill very well in the early game.

Edit: By the way, was it intentional to leave the move speed of War Mammoths at 2? They are one of the only Normal units not to have been sped up.

Yes.

I had a town with 2 Dark Elf Spearmen and city walls get attacked by 3 neutral War Mammoths. The enemy just sat there for a few turns before fleeing, Why wouldn't they try to attack? They have Wall Crusher!

That's interesting. I need to test it. The spearmen didn't happen to fly I hope?

[ChongLi]

That's interesting. I need to test it. The spearmen didn't happen to fly I hope?

Nope. They were sitting on the ground inside the wall, shooting at the mammoths.

[Seravy]

That's interesting. I need to test it. The spearmen didn't happen to fly I hope?

Nope. They were sitting on the ground inside the wall, shooting at the mammoths.

Confirmed. Looks like just enabling the AI to target as though they could go through walls does not let them actually go for it, so they are stuck with an unreachable target. Not sure what to do to make them move but I'll try. In worst case I can undo the AI trying to use Wall Crusher.
Ehh...fixed it in a sense...now they walk through the walls without crushing it... I don't think I can do anything to change that, this is as good as AI wall crusher gets...I think I should undo the whole thing.

[Seravy]

Updated to 1.35, fixed two major bugs and a few minor ones and swapped Terror with Wraith Form.
Terror is now more powerful and has an additional effect.

1.35
-Water Walking now costs 25.
-Fixed bug : AI only dispells Nature's Wrath if the spell's owner has a non-Nature primary realm instead of checking own.
-Fixed bug : AI only dispells Chaos Surge if the spell's owner has a non-Chaos primary and secondary realm instead of checking own.
-Minor updates to AI sea to sea and sea to land attack procedure (now recognizes Wraith Form, considers own stack land power if destination is on land)
-Fixed insecticide bug : Artificier halves required gold for merchant offers, but not the price subtracted, possible resulting in negative gold after purchase.
-Wraith Form is now a common spell (effect is unchanged)
-Terror is now a rare spell. Resistance penalty is -4, cost is 40 MP, and it adds a -1 to hit penalty for all enemy units (regardless of resistance or immunities, but only at the start of the next turn).
-Cloud of Shadow now costs 150 to cast, 2 to maintain due to improved effect of included spell : Terror.
-Fixed bug : some diplomatic actions crash is enemy army strength in astrologer is 0 (now minimal strength is 1)
-Fixed bug : AI wall crusher units sometimes get stuck (failed attempt of making AI use the ability)
-Fixed AI bug : stacks sometimes fall apart when heading towards an attack target if the units have different movement speeds.

Edit :
Reuploaded, Terror and Wraith Form now has a research cost suitable for their rarity.

[ChongLi]

Testing out some more. Have you actually managed to win a game on Extreme? I'm still finding it pretty much impossible. In my latest game a neutral Klackon town started 6 squares away from my home town and it had 9 stag beetles defending it! It sent out raiding parties of 3 stag beetles. There was pretty much nothing I could do.

Edit: Oh, and Sprites still seem way too expensive for what they do. 3 mana per turn and they're not even close to being as good as Ghouls.

Basilisks are similarly underpowered. Cockatrices are way better at stoning and they fly, too. If you ask me, Basilisks should have a ranged stoning attack to help them out a little bit. Nature in general seems way less powerful than everything else.