Caster of Magic II Brainstorming Megathread

[tehemperorer]

I would like an overland castable spell (Black Harvest) that kills these units and returns their casting cost as SP to me (at a ratio to keep it in line with Drain Power).

What casting cost? Undead come for free as a side effect of deailing undead creation damage. Unless you mean Blood Lust but even then the unit had no casting cost, only the spell.
- An example would be summoned skeletons, summoned ghouls, and zombies created through zombie mastery - they all become useless at certain points in the game and rather than sending wounded skeletons or zombies to a temple to die so I don't have to manage them, I was looking to recuperate their usefulness in another way. In the spirit of a Death sorcerer, I thought a sort of cannibalize-type spell would be nice to have because even the create undead feature of ghouls and zombies only rewards the death player if these comparatively weak units manage to damage other units sufficiently and the player ends up winning the battle. When I'm in the mid game Skeletons and Ghouls see no battle and are dangerous to leave as garrison forces because their performance tapers off, sometimes spectacularly, against marauding neutral forces. At the time where I'm battling Draconian Magicians or other Myrran opponents Zombie Mastery falls flat on its face - winning fights leaves me with stacks of units I now have to manage that are incapable of winning fights on their own. 

3. Any intention to allow Death races with no ranged units to hit flying units?

Death is a realm, not a race so I don't understand the question. Death can summon many creatures that can hit flying units : Night Stalkers, Wraiths, Demons, Death Knights and ofc the ranged Shadow Demons, and Demon Lords as well.
- Right, I was referring to Death's options against Sprites, specifically. Against Sprites I have no choice, if playing a race that has no ranged (Barbarian, Gnoll, Klackon, Troll, Dwarf, and even Halflings if the Sprites come too early) I have to cast Ghouls which make it seem to me like some retort strategies and races for Death are not viable because they are too risky. I was curious if this was a perceived weakness? It could be that it is generally felt that Death is fine in this regard and that it's an intended weakness for the Realm.

Death and Life nodes were considered in the earlier phase of development and I decided not to include them.
- Got it :D
Nodes that do something else that make them "not nodes" would be weird. Game mechanics should be consistent.

2. Drain Power, by the way, used on an enemy with over 6000/7000 mana, only gives me 1 skill - is that intended?

Skill growth is not linear so the amount you get depends on how much you already have. The higher your skill, the less you get from the same amount drained, but you can cast the spell more often instead.
- I see, thanks for the clarification!

[roarmalf]

What casting cost? Undead come for free as a side effect of deailing undead creation damage. Unless you mean Blood Lust but even then the unit had no casting cost, only the spell.
- An example would be summoned skeletons, summoned ghouls, and zombies created through zombie mastery - they all become useless at certain points in the game and rather than sending wounded skeletons or zombies to a temple to die so I don't have to manage them, I was looking to recuperate their usefulness in another way. In the spirit of a Death sorcerer, I thought a sort of cannibalize-type spell would be nice to have because even the create undead feature of ghouls and zombies only rewards the death player if these comparatively weak units manage to damage other units sufficiently and the player ends up winning the battle. When I'm in the mid game Skeletons and Ghouls see no battle and are dangerous to leave as garrison forces because their performance tapers off, sometimes spectacularly, against marauding neutral forces. At the time where I'm battling Draconian Magicians or other Myrran opponents Zombie Mastery falls flat on its face - winning fights leaves me with stacks of units I now have to manage that are incapable of winning fights on their own. 

Undead units with no upkeep are free garrison units to either max out unrest reduction or to sentry in key locations so that enemies can't advance more than one square per turn. They're incredibly useful alone, but with the ability to reproduce they're even better. If you're using ONLY death books they might lose some utility, since spells like web go a long way into turning those draconian magicians into undead draconian magicians.

Perhaps changing up your strategy a little would give you more insight into their value.

[massone]

- An example would be summoned skeletons, summoned ghouls, and zombies created through zombie mastery - they all become useless at certain points in the game

That's true for all units in every realm and race. Weaker units become obsolete as magic advances...that's how it's supposed to be.
There are ways to keep them relevant, but they require more advanced strategies or other realms, like Focus Magic on Ghouls. Zombie Mastery is strong when combined with some other spells that can buff your Zombies and debuff your opponents, or to get a lot of disposable units for repeated battles (so you can expend more combat casting to win).

Against Sprites I have no choice, if playing a race that has no ranged (Barbarian, Gnoll, Klackon, Troll, Dwarf, and even Halflings if the Sprites come too early)

Sprites are supposed to be Nature's best early game advantage. Barbarians do not have any problems because Thrown allows them to hit flying units. Halflings in COM2 are no longer weak to them due to the addition of Bowmen. Klackons are not really weak to sprites considering that their Swordsmen have 8 effective shields with the Large Shield bonus against ranged magical attacks. In COM1, Mana Leak also counters sprites, but it got moved to Uncommon in COM2. I can't remember if Weakness works on ranged magic attacks, but if it does, that'd be a hard counter too.

[Suppanut]

I want to suggest that Spellward should not only able to cast on friendly city, it should also able to cast on city that not own by wizard too. so it could act as curse as much as enchantment.

But could ai wizard able to recognize spellward that target on the realm they could cast as curse?

Another idea is about magic immunity, I think it should change into "anti-magic" make unit could not be target of other spell (include caster wizard too) and random chance for dispel enchanted of unit it attack but dispel all other enchanted spell, but also lost ability to breath attack, ranged magic attack or cast spell but at least casting cost and upkeep cheaper than original magic immunity. Basically make it cheaper at cost making spell become double edge sword.

[roarmalf]

Another idea is about magic immunity, I think it should change into "anti-magic" make unit could not be target of other spell (include caster wizard too) and random chance for dispel enchanted of unit it attack but dispel all other enchanted spell, but also lost ability to breath attack, ranged magic attack or cast spell but at least casting cost and upkeep cheaper than original magic immunity. Basically make it cheaper at cost making spell become double edge sword.

That makes it even more powerful for the player since you control what you cast it on, and that makes it harder for the AI to use well. It's already incredibly strong, no need to make it even better by making it almost impossible to dispel.

[Suppanut]

Another idea is about magic immunity, I think it should change into "anti-magic" make unit could not be target of other spell (include caster wizard too) and random chance for dispel enchanted of unit it attack but dispel all other enchanted spell, but also lost ability to breath attack, ranged magic attack or cast spell but at least casting cost and upkeep cheaper than original magic immunity. Basically make it cheaper at cost making spell become double edge sword.

That makes it even more powerful for the player since you control what you cast it on, and that makes it harder for the AI to use well. It's already incredibly strong, no need to make it even better by making it almost impossible to dispel.

I see. perhaps idea of anti-magic would be more useful as item's enchantment rather than as unit enchantment (equipment that make hero could nolonger being target by magical effect and damage and mute other magical enchantment from other item, but base-stat improvement still retain)

[jhsidi]

Another idea is about magic immunity, I think it should change into "anti-magic" make unit could not be target of other spell (include caster wizard too) and random chance for dispel enchanted of unit it attack but dispel all other enchanted spell, but also lost ability to breath attack, ranged magic attack or cast spell but at least casting cost and upkeep cheaper than original magic immunity. Basically make it cheaper at cost making spell become double edge sword.

That makes it even more powerful for the player since you control what you cast it on, and that makes it harder for the AI to use well. It's already incredibly strong, no need to make it even better by making it almost impossible to dispel.

I see. perhaps idea of anti-magic would be more useful as item's enchantment rather than as unit enchantment (equipment that make hero could nolonger being target by magical effect and damage and mute other magical enchantment from other item, but base-stat improvement still retain)

I think you were actually onto something good there. Magic Immunity is, IMO, kind of a bad spell. It's so ridiculously overpowered to be able to completely block everything magical that it's basically game over once you get it, and since Sorcery also has Spell Lock and Invisibility, as well as nasty item effects like teleportation and ignoring armor, other wizards are completely stymied. I love playing Sorcery but I very much have a love/hate with both MI and Invisibility, because they can break the game so thoroughly and, depending on luck of the roll with opponents, allow you to steamroll some entire worlds.

So in that context -- I think Magic Immunity might be improved if it did prevent any other positive enchantments on the unit. So no more units with magic immunity AND invisibility, which is again just game over against certain opponents.

Perhaps it would even be good to add on nullifying any item effects, as well. Although I disagree on reducing the costs for MI in any way.

[Anskiy]

I feel like Magic Immunity would be more interesting if it worked like a "curse" immunity and stopped all curses from working on the unit, including Crack's Call. This would be a very powerful and useful effect without breaking the game in two, like how Magic Immunity tends to do on strong units. Further, it would mean to actually defend against magic spells you would need to take books either in Nature, which specifically has spells to defend against magic damage, or Life spells to raise your defensive stats. This way it would encourage synergy between realms some more, though granted Sorcery tends to synergize with the other realms already.

[Anskiy]

So I had a discussion with Suppanut, and we both concluded that Great Drake was a boring summon that was too similar to the Sky Drake in its role, except noticeably weaker. I decided that it would be worthwhile to brainstorm an alternative to it. This is what we ended up with:

Chaos Lord:
Highest attack and ranged attack of all Very Rare summons
Mediocre defense and resistance for a Very Rare(but not too low; Chaos lacking defensive spells to shield its units from status effects or damage is a major issue)
Two casts of Apocalypse
Random status effects on both its ranged and melee attacks

Basically, the idea was that Chaos would have something to extend its combat casting, since that's what it excels at. That's why Efreet is considered the best Chaos summon in general. On top of that, Suppanut thought it would be cool to extend Chaos Spawn's effects to Very Rare somehow, and since the realm is Chaos, randomly assigning its attacks status effects seemed like a good way to do so.

[Suppanut]

For Chaos lord, why not add innate effect that it would randomly buff itself at the start of that of battle (similar to innate mystic surge but not have effect of reduce to 1 hp at the end of battle due to it suppose to innate in its chaotic nature) too? If we want it to be randomizer, it should have situation which luck of enemy is running out when it start combat surged with magic immunity.