SORCERY Realm

[zitro1987]

In regards to skill requirement, I don't think most AI would start with 4 (601+skill) unless you are playing extreme difficulties and they are freely spamming amplifying towers, Uranus blessings, an uninterrupted aether global, archmage, etc.

I do think 4 should be a cap.
*It may also not be a terrible idea to increase the skill-requirement tier to be a 250 multiple rather than 200.
*It may also not be a bad idea to more the formula more towards a 3-4 than a 2-5. Something like 2 +1/400*skill (rounded down)

As far as cost, we should treat this spell as granting 3 advanced spell research in normal games ... and assume the spell is above average:
*The spell itself probably costs 20000 or more research points and a very rare spell slot, worth 1 to 1.5 global research cost already
*The spell costs an additional 3000 skill usage and mana to even have these spells (assuming it costs 1000 mana), probably worth 1 global research cost or re-casting 3 disjuncted globals.
*The globals available from whichever opponent(s) you have left may not be the very best for your situation.

[Nelphine]

Right, but spells aren't (usually) power dependant on difficulties - or land size. This spell, as a function of casting skill, which is dependant on both those things, will be. 
Which is why ideally there would be a land size variable in the casting skill requirements OR it would just be huge jumps like 400+.

And it's a very rare spell. MOST times if an AI gets a very rare spell and is still a threat, they have been largely free to cast things like aether binding or Uranus blessing. Otherwise their research suffers too much and either they don't get to very rares or they are no longer a threat. We need to look at the most common cases where this spell will get used by the AI - mono sorcery myrran. And of those s perfectionist with Uranus blessing will be by far the most dangerous. We can't simply dismiss that case we need to account for it.

[zitro1987]

I kind of agree, which is why I think it needs to have a formula tweak so it's generally 3 in ideal wizard late in game, 2 in non-ideal wizard or too early, and 4 for the most uber-powerful wizard (or extreme AI).

Changing Seravy's X/200 rounded up to 1+X/400 rounded up is my suggested nerf based on what I said above:

Getting 2 spells indicates the wizard didn't get to 400 skill - maybe a multi-color wizard without archmage or spell received via lair or researched too early or maybe it's a losing wizard with just 10 or so amplifying towers.
Getting 3 spells indicates the wizards is in the 400-799 skill range - this is an ideal wizard with the right skill-boosting strategies and a bunch of cities and amplifying towers.
Getting 4 spells indicates an uber-powerful wizard with 800+ skill (Seravy's formula allows 4 with just 600). Some AIs may meet this. A few uber-powerful humans might but you have to be really good at it.
Should we allow 5 spells or cap it at 4? Having 1200 skill is too much, that wizard clearly won the game lol.

In other words, my suggestion eliminates the 1-199 poor skill range (when will that ever happen?) and converts the 400-599 range to a longer 400-799 range so few get the 4 spells.

[Nelphine]

I'd be ok with that. The only 'issue' is that it doesn't allow for 1 spell, which I'm not sure if Seravy wants to skip entirely. I don't think you'd need to cap it at 4 - anyone getting to 1200 is breaking the game expectations in so many ways anyway this won't really matter.

[zitro1987]

Thanks, but why would anyone want it to allow just 1 spell for 20,000+ research points and a v rare slot. That's an unacceptable deal, thus a minimum of 2 seems fair.

[Nelphine]

Ehhh you get to choose your very rare. That by itself is worth being the most expensive very rare in existence, as you can customize it to your needs. Everything beyond that is extreme icing. (I could see going so far as to say 3 should be the cap, only attained at the 700-800 skill mark. Getting to effectively choose 3 very rares is amazing.)

[Seravy]

I thought we were no longer into the thought process of avoiding having the spell stolen.

Well, not casting spells is certainly very unfun.
Not researching them though, might be worse, and on top of it, you don't have full control over it (you can find some in treasure).
So the real question is, is there a need for others to be able to do something against it, on top of the usual choices (Spell Blast, Disjunction)?
I think not. You can't "not cast/research" against Armageddon if it comes from a Chaos wizard either.

So the problem is more in psychology. This spell does offer you the choice of not researching, thus you perceive it as if it was worse - because it forces you to choose between two bad choices (you don't get the spell, or enemy gets it too) while otherwise there is no such choice (it's just plain bad, the enemy gets the spell, and that's all). Technically, not having a choice is always equal or worse than having a choice between that and another option, but the player does perceive it as if it was the opposite.

Just posting this again. Do you really want most people starting with 3 spells and a significant number of AI starting with 4 spells?

We've established in the research calculations that 200 skill when making the transition from very rare to rare, is normal. Which means two spells (yes, I am assuming you will go for Spell Binding in your first two very rares, it is that good, and the AI does that, too). Later, at the end of the very rare phase, 400 is normal. I suppose we can say Sorcery spells push the skill up by 100 from what's normal - IF you have them. Even then it should be using a 300/500/700 system and not 300/600/900 but assuming the player always has AEther Binding and Uranus' Blessing might be a bad idea.

Capping it at 4 spells seems reasonable. (albeit 3 or 5 should be considered)

Land size is a broken, unfixable feature that cannot be balanced anyway. We can safely ignore it, also it already has an effect of driving players towards more aggressive expansion, which makes Sorcery weaker there (at least for the human. AI is a different story.)

mono sorcery myrran.

In the current state of the game, if I see one of those again, I'll probably just concede until we test and rebalance Myrran AI wizards fully. Spell Binding was bad, but it wasn't why I lost - the sheer advantage in power, territory and units, was. SO I want to make sure that stays a problem for all Myrran races and realms, and then do something about it, if needed.
So we should start to worry about that case then, not now.


I most definitely want to keep the "1" option. In fact, if we do accept that 200 skill is underrated for that phase (as Sorcery generally has more skill), we might want to start at higher.

So the formula can be ((Skill-X)/Y spells (rounded up), where Y should be 150-200 and X should be 0-150 most likely.

[Seravy]

I think we are on the right track. I realized there is a "hidden" nerf in this :
In order to steal a spell, you must cast Spell Binding. That opens a window of opportunity for the opponent to cast that spell. What's new is, the process of stealing won't remove that - so if you actually do want to copy an Armageddon, you risk letting it go through and will have to dispel it afterwards. This can be a fairly big deal for most of the "best" spells you want to steal with it.
Of course there is the possibility that you see the spell coming, cancel your binding, spell blast and start over but that's obviously not very economic.

To maximize this drawback, we likely should have a high casting cost for Spell Binding. As it is something you only need to use once (per spell so at most 4 times per game), a high cost is much more acceptable than on the old Spell Binding.

[Nelphine]

I disagree that sorcery only adds 100 skill by very rare phase. I also disagree that we shouldn't assume the 2 sorcery skill spells.

Reasoning: I believe we should balance the spell around people who plan on having it. I think the 1 spell option is excellent for people who luck into getting Spell Binding (3 sorcery books or 4 sorcery books plus treasure).  But people who plan to get this spell will be mono sorcery - 8+ books. At 8+ books you will have all uncommons (so you do have aether binding) and you will have almost all rares (so in the majority of cases, you will have Uranus blessing). People who fall in the 5-7 book category won't be planning around any given very rare - therefore, they may get lucky, and then they could be in the 1 spell category, or they get very lucky and have all the skill spells as well, and that pushes them into the 'plan for this spell' category.

So I'd say 200 is reasonable (albeit I believe on the low side of reasonable) for another realm. That means, with both sorcery skill spells, I'd say +125 or so is a basic minimum (aether binding alone is ~50? Skill by very rare phase).

Which means, on the higher end of reasonable, 400 is completely possible - someone going for high end casting skill could certainly push that (2 heroes with heroism and +skill trait are worth more than another 50 skill by very rares by themselves). And high difficulty AI can go further.

So I'd say up to about 250-300 you should still fall in the camp of someone who lucked into the spell, therefore, only get 1 use. But up to 400 is still reasonably possible to achieve when you first reach the spell, so the third spell needs to be higher than that.

I think the third spell should be determined by where you want master AI who push to fall when they research the spell. I'd say, they'd probably have 500-550 casting skill. Do you want them to start with 3 uses? I'm in the no camp myself. 

But that leads into the next topic: the changed version of this spell is NOT spell steal, or super disjunction, as the original was.

This version of the spell is 'learn a very rare spell of your choice' that happens to be restricted to other spells in play in that game. 

Given that, I'd highly suggest making the cap 3. It's incredibly strong to get 3 very rare spells for the research cost of 1. Giving more than 3 just becomes excessive. (If it gave 4, then with 6 books, this spell literally doubles my very rare spells. That seems too much.)

Assuming you do cap it at 3, I have to say, I would not want any master AI to start with the cap, even if they pushed really hard. So I'd want the 3rd spell to come at 600-700. (600 if you want humans who push to reach it, 700 if you want to ensure that lunatic AI who push won't start at the cap).

[Nelphine]

Wait am I missing something? Spell binding by itself should no longer have any effect on the opponent casting their spell right? It's just that you'll have spell blast and could stop the opponent from casting it? (Which you could do regardless of you having or not having Spell Binding?)