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As a French person I feel like it's my duty to explain strikes to you. - AdrienIer |
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SORCERY Realm
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September 25th, 2016, 10:11
(This post was last modified: September 25th, 2016, 10:13 by zitro1987.)
Conjure Roads is quite an expensive investment to connect your towns, plus 400 research cost seems steep. I suggest a 20-25% cost reduction and a below average research cost.
Nagas + Focus Magic is kind of extreme because of 12 ranged poison. It does eventually get outdated, but you can do a lot with this at the beginning of the game. I have no suggestions as without this combo Sorcery struggles way too much at the beginning. Great Unsummoning is far too cheap and too accessible (half research cost) for such a massive effect that would likely kill at least 3X as much combined mana cost of units compared to the spell. I like that it now targets only opponents, but a cost reduction seems overkill. I'd like to see a stronger, but more expensive (cost and research) version of Djinn, maybe having 20melee/20ranged and 10 armor, but I can understand the reasoning behind a weaker v rare sorcery unit.
September 25th, 2016, 11:55
(This post was last modified: September 25th, 2016, 11:57 by Seravy.)
 (September 25th, 2016, 11:46)Nelphine Wrote: How do road bonuses work? Does every race get them?Every race yes. There is a cap of 3% gold bonus per population. The bonus itself comes from terrain (river, shore) and roads, in case of roads, it's the amount of population connected to the town though roads in other towns (including enemy towns!), divided by two if they are the same race as your town. In other words, you need to connect cities with a total population equal to 3x yours if they are other races, and 6x if they're the same race to get the maximal bonus, assuming you get none from terrain or being Nomads.
Ah cool. So 2 cities roughly same pop never get a road bonus? Or could the terrain bonus be his enough to be worth adding roads?
Djinn: I wouldn't upgrade it. Late game is either heroes, drakes, colossus, wyrms, or super buffed normal units, or casting units. Any very rare casters bring casting, not combat ability. Death knights are the only oddity here that seem to work fine. (September 25th, 2016, 13:04)Nelphine Wrote: Ah cool. So 2 cities roughly same pop never get a road bonus? Or could the terrain bonus be his enough to be worth adding roads? Based on this question I think you don't understand how it works. Okay, best is if I post the formula instead of trying to explain with words. Trade Bonus = Min (3* This Town Pop , Terrain Gold bonus+Nomad Bonus+0.5*total amount of population in towns connected with roads of the same race+1*total amount of population in towns connected with roads of different races) in a percentage of gold added the same way as a bank or prosperity.
After certain boosts applied to some other realms' spells and creatures (particularly with death realm), I'm starting to notice Sorcery falling behind around the 'uncommon/rare' phase. A sorcery-only wizard particularly suffers as there's not much to cast overland, while some worthy spells have a delayed benefit for when you acquire Storm Giant or Djinn (essential to survival). I was playing a dual-color wizard and I rarely found myself using sorcery spells overland, finding better uses in the other realm.
Common Spells (Sorcery is good at the beginning compared to other realms) with a nice variety of useful spells, some staying useful later in the game *In Combat, you get a surprisingly damaging 'Aether Sparks' that has an added effect against magic units, and two illusion-based spells (phantom warriors generally being my preferred one). *Guardian Wind is useful at times, though for situational enchantments, I prefer the cheaper and underrated 'resist magic' *Nagas are mediocre and slow, but they are quite destructive with 'Focus Magic' due to ranged poison. If it weren't for Nagas, 'Focus Magic' may not be useful until much later once you acquire magicians. There's also that nasty and easily accessible combo with cockatrices which I find almost as broken as flying warships from the original game. *Floating Islands is tactically useful for early expansion, confusion is merely 'ok' as a resistance based spell though I like having access to one. Counter Magic provides an option to block rather than cast. So Far, a pretty good and varied set of spells, about average compared to other realms start games. Uncommon Spell Stage of Game - A rare situation that does not appear to give enough incentive for player to cast as many overland spells as possible. Nature has summons, 2 terrain spells, land link, and also an overland healing spell. Chaos has plenty of unit enchantments and summons. Life has ... well, not much, but the 'common' spells can get you by even by this stage and get more effective when combined with combat spells. Death has tons of options (with 'Drain Power' when you can't think of anything). So what about Sorcery? *Focus Magic feels like an 'uncommon' spell and is the primary overland choice. A player should always start with this spell just in case and a player should plan to have a race with magicians or a realm with powerful mage units (shadow demons) or melee units that benefit from ranged attacks (giant spiders/cockatrices). If you're lucky like my game, efreet enchanted with focus magic will be your main strategy. It took a lot of research to get there though. Outside of the powerful 'Focus Magic' (which is common), what else is there? The naga+focus magic combo in sorcery will fade in usefulness. *Aura of Majesty which you just cast once. A good spell if you end up hibernating and waiting to research a good overland spell to cast over and over. However, it doesn't guarantee a lack of war or getting peace if you already got a wizard taking your towns. *Spell Blast - not too much of an incentive to cast this fairly early in the game. Your opponent may have more skill and mana, plus you already have the disadvantage of the initial 50mana cost, plus you're just one vs multiple wizards. You'll end up falling behind except in instances where an opponent's spell seriously needs to be prevented. Oh, and you need to cast 'Detect Magic' for this to be useful. *Dispelling Wave - among the best spells to cast over and over - weakening opponents is not a bad thing. I find this to be a more cost-effective at neutralizing opponents compared to spell blast once you have aether binding. *Flight - other than a few top-tier units and heroes - it's hard justifying 125/2 cost among weaker units. Does not combine too well with storm giant as they only have 4 shots. Nevertheless, among the best spells to cast over and over if you plan in advance to bring out warships. Choose a race that allows warships! *Conjure Roads - fun spell, but generally requires multiple castings and the 'trade' bonus heavily relies on both high city population and mixing of races. That's a lot of investment for an eventual gold (and military) benefit. The cost of 100 is simply too high when compared against spells like transmute and change terrain. *Aether Binding - expensive but obviously great. However, the spell benefits you more later in the game when it's hard to raise skill points. Besides, why would you need this much skill before the mid-game? Maybe if playing a dual-color wizard. *Spell Lock - expensive and not guaranteed protection. Limited use until you get the more expensive enchantments or play with life/chaos and have a ton of unit enchantments. So, what do we have in combat? An ok but unspectacular 'Blur', a pretty good combat summon,dispelling wave, and a very cost-effective resistance-based spell 'vertigo'. Not bad set, but the other realms appear better. How about Rares? *only one overland summon to use up your acquired skill points and there's a chance you might not have it, and it's not even that outstanding of a unit anyways, nor a unit that combines that well with flight/invisibility/magic immunity or most enchantments from other realms. -What if air elemental can also be summoned in any spot like 'floating island' and has no upkeep (50*5=250/0)? *What else is there overland that is not too situational? Not really that much as unit enchantments rely on the strongest units to be cost-effective (heroes?). Stasis is a bit situational and 'defensive' as you have to predict opponent movement. At least overland skill can be used once per stack with 'wind walking'. So what's left? better plan a race that has both wizard's guild and amplifying towers so that you can spam Uranus Blessing, possibly the easiest 'rare' to cast over and over again. Not only do we have to plan for a race that allows warships, but also Wizards Guild and Amplifying Towers. All of these are not very military-based plus you may have few or no summon choices to compensate for dedicating so much time in your cities with these expensive buildings as opposed to cranking out armorer guild units. What about in combat? 2 excellent resistance-based spells, a powerful unresistable curse, and best of all: 'air elemental'. Combat is at least getting better. By the time you get to 'very rare', you'll have focus magic djinns, sky drakes, great unsummoning - easy choices to spend overland mana.
Sorcery is still the most powerful realm in the endgame, and for that the price is a weak early/midgame, or the need to at least have a few books from another realm.
One reason why AEther Binding and Uranus Blessing is fair instead of insanely overpowered is the very limited ways to use casting skill for the realm until much later. If you can survive until then, you are unstoppable. A lot of uncommon sorcery spells get useful much later, true, but that means the realm gets much more higher tier spells than normal : many uncommons would be rare or even very rare in other realms. AEther Binding is the most obvious one, I think this kind of benefit would be very rare in other realms (the RP produced is comparable to Life Force). Aura of Majesty is another, being able to avoid wars and get alliances wins the game on its own. Again this would be very rare in any other realm, but Sorcery gets it as an uncommon...and it is one of the things that can actually help survival. Dispelling Wave is also very powerful and easily worth a rare slot in other realms (all-targeting combat spells are normally rare and above, and this even works overland!). Counter Magic is common, but what is does is as good as a rare - it can prevent multiple uncommon or many common spells per combat. Spell Blast...is easily the most overpowered spell in the game and the only way to stop Spell of Mastery. Again, something that fits very rare more than uncommon but the realm gets it early. Mind Storm is something most realms would be happy to have even as very rare as well, as it effectively acts as a -5 save modifier...or disables a less powerful unit on its own. Magic Immunity...is so powerful I had to remove it from artifact creation. Easily worth a very rare slot. When playing pure sorcery, one of these is essential : -Fast research -or books from another realm (you only need 2 to be able to get some uncommon creature you can summon) -or a race with strong units -or retorts that strengthen normal units somehow (Tactician, Warlord, Alchemy, Guardian) -or early Aura of Majesty and a treaty with every other wizard |
