Revision of the spell selection system

[MrBiscuits]

Taking a lot of books used to allow you to pick spells rarer than commons at the start and also got you large reductions in costs. Now it does neither so is underpowered.

Instead of making retorts less useful it would be better to add in more bonuses for more spells of one realm. Perhaps a larger research reduction for more books and then increase research costs for all spells.

[Seravy]

Started investigating the spell selection system. Looks like there is no interface for very rare spells, though I'm not 100% sure yet. There is room for only 3 rarity tiers on the screen anyway so it's very likely.
...yep, only 3 tiers of spells. Spell IDs are loaded dynamically into the interface though, so it's possible to make it have different rarities for each amount of books...if we make an entire new loading procedure.

So it's either
-No very rare guaranteed spells (less work)
-No common starters, uncommon guaranteed, rare guaranteed and very rare guaranteed at the same time.

Either way, no starting and guaranteed in the same tier for the same number of books, or at all, pretty much, as expected.

So whatever the new system you want is, it has to be only one type for each rarity. Which means only starting commons, only guaranteed uncommons, rares and very rares I guess.

...the maximal number of picks in the second and third box is 2 and 1. This is unlikely to be possible to change - there is no more space allocated for storing the picks. I don't get why it's stored there instead of being read/written directly from wizard spell data, that way it can be changed. I don't think we need more than 1-2 guaranteed of anything though, anyway.

[Seravy]

By the way if any Guaranteed spell system is added, we of course have to do the same for the AI - which will not just make the game harder, but probably less fun, as variance decreases and the AI will never miss having the nastiest spell you definitely didn't want to see. And by that I mean, all 4 of them will have it. (Spell Blast, Suppress Magic, Famine and Armageddon guaranteed every game on multiple wizards, do we really want this system? )

[Nelphine]

Wouldn't bother me that much.. Walk over, mulch the wizards capital (none of those four spells do anything to my doomstack) and then disjunction away. Yes if all four had them, that would suck. I'd personally rather never see guaranteed very rares.

[zitro1987]

By the way if any Guaranteed spell system is added, we of course have to do the same for the AI - which will not just make the game harder, but probably less fun, as variance decreases and the AI will never miss having the nastiest spell you definitely didn't want to see. And by that I mean, all 4 of them will have it. (Spell Blast, Suppress Magic, Famine and Armageddon guaranteed every game on multiple wizards, do we really want this system? )

That's a good point. Can we negate the 'guaranteed' effect to AI and have it just apply to player? I don't think I would like the situation Seravy is mentioning.

(If that makes the game much easier, we can just give 1 extra book to every AI starting from normal)

Personally, I'd rather have books give more research discount (or more spells, especially rarer spells) in place of the spell cost reduction (or this guaranteed higher-tier idea)

[Catwalk]

There's no need to set the AI to always pick the same spells. Just like the human player will pick different guaranteed spells from game to game, so should the AI.

Guaranteed very rare spells should be a prize for a high number of books, of course.

[Seravy]

There's no need to set the AI to always pick the same spells. Just like the human player will pick different guaranteed spells from game to game, so should the AI.

Guaranteed very rare spells should be a prize for a high number of books, of course.

Certainly, the AI will pick different spells based on their other realms and available strategy but that still limits the choices to like 1-3 spells per rarity.
Same deal, if I as a human player pick my guaranteed spells, 70% will never get picked and the remaining 30% will be always the same for the same strategy.

But might as well look into this in a bit more detail.

Nature Uncommon
I will always pick Giant Spiders if going for a summoner strategy. Transmute if going military. Basilisks if playing Trolls or playing neither of the above. I would never pick the other 7 spells except in very rare corner cases.
For the AI, I'd set the exact same spells, they work fine for them.
3/10 either way.

Nature Rare
Survival Instinct if mono-nature or Nature-Chaos. Gorgons otherwise - I'll be short on good summons for the rare tier. Iron Skin if playing a Spell Lock hero strategy. Gaia's Blessing for a low difficulty peaceful game aiming for an economy based victory, not that I'd actually play it.
For the AI I'd give Survival instinct (mono, or with chaos). Earthquake otherwise - none of the other spells are very good for the AI here, except maybe Petrify but that only for mono-green which needs something else.
4/10 for me, 2/10 for the AI.

Nature Very Rare
Call Lightning. Always for myself and the AI. It's that good.
1/10

Sorcery Uncommon
Spell Blast. No one else can win with Spell of Mastery, and I'm safe from all the nasty globals. Same for the AI.
1/10

Sorcery Rare
Magic Immunity (hero/buffing/rare summon strategies), Mind Storm(if playing a realm with good resist-or-die effects) or Air Elemental (for conjurer). Same for the AI.
3/10

Sorcery Very Rare
This one is harder. Spell Binding, Time Stop, Spell Ward all win the game. But Time stop wins it most. It allows for a SoM Victory that cannot be spell blasted. So Time Stop for myself.
1/10
For the AI, Time Stop if a strong economy to fuel the costs is expected (high difficulty or Alchemy) and personality is aggressive enough to actually be hostile and cast it. Otherwise Spell Binding in high player count games (more spells to steal), Spell Ward on low (less enemies to defend against).
3/10

Chaos Uncommon
Fire Storm for me and the AI. It's that good.
1/10

Chaos Rare
Doom Mastery if already picked Survival Instinct. Flame Strike otherwise. Same for the AI.
2/10

Chaos Very Rare
Armageddon, but Disintegrate if Mind Storm was picked. Same for the AI.
2/10

Life Uncommon
Prayer
1/10

Life Rare
Incarnation for myself
1/10
None of these really stand out for the AI, except  Invulnerability.
1/10

Life Very Rare
Lots of good choices here. Might pick anything except Consecration and Holy Arms.
8/10
Arch Angel for the AI if mono-Life. Crusade if Warlord. Charm of Life otherwise. High Prayer is tempting but Prayer is already guaranteed and it's good enough.
3/10

Death Uncommon
Black Prayer is a must have for both me and the AI
1/10

Death Rare
Wave of Despair for me.
1/10
Famine for the AI if having a personality that is likely to be hostile to others, Wave of Despair otherwise
2/10

Death Very Rare
Hardest choice so far. I think I'd go Death Knights 90% of the time. For the AI, Pestilence is far the best.

The spell system wasn't designed for guaranteed spells - each group has 1-3 outstanding spells that stand out compared to the rest. (if the AI doesn't pick from these, it's pulling its punches, which we don't want)

[Nelphine]

Interestingly, our life, sorcery, and death choices wouldn't be the same. I'm bad at nature and chaos so the fact we're not the same there probably doesn't mean much. Although our nature is almost the same.

[Catwalk]

Do you want each realm to have 1-3 outstanding spells?

[Nelphine]

I believe the current idea is to have specialties for each realm, and the spells at each rarity that match the specialty will be better than others in that realm at that rarity. For instance, life has great buffing spells, and its summons are fairly ho hum. Nature has awesome summons, but its city spells aren't something you can plan whole steatgeies around. Etc.

Which means, each level will have definitely better spells, although all spells are meant to be impressive enough to be used.