SORCERY Realm

[Nelphine]

My Uranus' Blessing is only costing 177 per cast. So, it's only ~25 turns to earn it back. Should actually be lower, but I killed the mono life wizard.

More importantly, with the numbers I'm throwing around, it simply doesn't matter how long it takes to earn it back - it let's me do silly things like mass invisibility + multiple hastes per combat, and instant cast summon storm giant multiple times per turn.

Spellweaver not only increases the spell casting skill Uranus' creates, it also increases the power generated by Uranus'. Only takes 19 turns to earn back the mana I spent.


My concern is specifically that an Impossible Sorcery AI with Spellweaver is going to break 500 casting skill by 1410. Which seems.. excessive. And given that Sorcery is meant to be unbeatable when it gets to its endgame, this would be a VERY early endgame.

And I think I only had 10 Amplifying towers at that point.


I'm also specifically posting this because I would not say I'm amazing with Sorcery. I suspect people who have better early games than I (it would have been 1405 or 1406 before I started taking out lairs and nodes) would do even better.

[Nelphine]

June 1413 (9 months?) - my overland casting skill is now 534. The rate of increase is.. significant.

[Seravy]

Well, normally I would be worried about such extreme casting skill, but...it's sorcery. Time Stop means almost infinite casting skill...

why are you paying 177 for 300 costs spells? It's not a summon so can't be conjurer...specialist is 15% and you can at most have 9 books for another 5, so your cost should be no less than 240.

I have to conclude there was at least one Divine Order in effect.


Speaking of Time Stop. At the moment the AI only uses it during war - it makes sense as you need war to be able to take advantage of the effect of many attacks on the same enemy in the same turn.
However, Time Stop has another use - it's a multiplier of casting skill. For 20k mana, a wizard can summon 20 Sky Drakes during that one turn. So maybe the AI should also cast it during peace if the mana is very high?

[Nelphine]

Yes multiple divine orders.

But, even if time stop is infinite skill, time stop can be spell blasted, the AI won't always get time stop, etc. This much casting skill, this early? Imagine playing against an ai with this in 1410. What would you do to try to compete with it? They can cast time stop in 2 turns (or any other very rare.)

Unless you consider 1410 an acceptable 'end game' I think there's a problem.


On topic of AI casting time stop: this is one of the few spells I do not ever want to reach the AI to use more often. Even if its smart, its utterly boring for the player. The last time the AI used time stop it took 15 minutes for its turn to be over. I don't want that to be any more common, no matter how effective or intelligent it is, because gameplay suffers massively when the human player.. Can't play..

[Seravy]

This much casting skill, this early? Imagine playing against an ai with this in 1410. What would you do to try to compete with it? They can cast time stop in 2 turns (or any other very rare.)

AEther Binding gives SP equal to your skill - this is necessary to get a linear growth of skill out of the spell.
The cost of growth is 2X and you gain X each turn, so the growth ratio is 2. (2 turns for +1 skill point)

With spellweaver, the cost of growth is (4/3)X and you gain 3/2X - the growth ratio is 0.88 - 2.27 times faster than without the retort when it should be only 1.5 times faster.

That's certainly wrong but what can we do?
I don't think there is room for deducing the spellweaver bonus from the added SP, although if there was, that could fix it, I should check.

Uranus's Blessing fares slightly better - You get 10.5 bonus skill instead of 7 from each Amplifying Tower, which makes the return of investment faster (and the higher skill makes the initial cost easier to pay) but that's about it - probably not a problem by itself.

[Nelphine]

First off I disagree that you need linear growth of skill. Skill in the later game is massively important to do things like avoid spell blast, and to summon powerful creatures instantaneously.

Going from 190-200-210 in the same time frame is a HUGE boost. I would much rather have aether binding continue to follow the same rules as all other skill increases, exponential. Make Aether Binding a flat bonus (say 50-75 skill power per turn). It doesn't need to be better than other very rares that also give power bonuses of some kind, when it isn't even very rare itself, considering by tthe end game, most of your power is used for skill boosts (so the power gained from very rares that give raw power.. is just used for skill. Which is kind of pointless, when Aether Binding is so much better.)

For Spellweaver, I'd rather reduce the bonus to 30% or so instead of 50%. Early game it's nice to have more regular spell ability, but then you pick archmage. By late game, overland spell ability is far far more important - you max out how much in combat spell you need (for instance, my 300 skill in combat is plenty) - you don't care that spellweaver doesn't apply to it. But having more overland skill? That's amazing. So spellweaver is just.. incredibly good.

[Seravy]

AEther Binding plays into Sorcery's role of getting stronger over time.
75 is a number I would laugh at and not even bother casting after turn 200. And it's also an overpowered amount to get if you somehow cast the spell on turn 30-40.

I found a tiny bit of space so I was able to make AEther Binding subtract the 50% spellweaver bonus, so at least that problem will be gone.

Spellweaver is certainly good and certainly better than Archmage. It costs twice as many picks so it should be.

[Nelphine]

Spellweaver costs twice as many picks, and does what mana focusing used to do on top of the 50% overland cast skill. It isn't twice as good as archmage; its about 10 times as good. (Except in the early game where your max combat skill actually matters, say up to 1408 or so.)

Turn 200? The game is over by then. If you only get Aether Binding that late, it doesn't matter anyway. And fine, if you cast it by turn 30, put a cap of your current skill on it, or 75, which ever is higher. If you wouldn't bother to cast something that gives you 55 power per turn (or more with the right retort).. you're crazy. Even if you 'must' use it on skill (which is what you use raw power on 75% of the time anyway), that's still better than a fully developed city with Uranus' blessing on it. It takes you 4 or 5 turns to make back your initial cost. It's so unbelievably worth it, it's not funny. Getting literally hundreds per turn? That's insane. It takes you less than 1 turn to make back your initial investment. Nothing else in the game remotely compares to Aether Binding as it currently stands. Its better than Enlightenment and Life Force combined. Its better than Dark Rituals, better than Armaggedon, better than Awareness even with the new buff.

Oh and that's all without the bonus to dispelling.

[Seravy]

If you wouldn't bother to cast something that gives you 55 power per turn (or more with the right retort).. you're crazy.

Why would I when I have over 1000 anyway? Makes no difference. Even getting +1 skill every 2 turns makes minimal difference when your skill is 300. How much is that, a 0.16666% increase per turn? Meh. And you would cut it to a quarter of that.
The spell costs 400. Since you don't have it in play it means someone is dispelling it at least every once in a while. So you have to cast it over and over again. For what, an extra few points of casting skill? I rather spend that cost on a few Djinn or Sky Drakes, conquer a city, put Uranus Blessing on it and voila, I gained as much skill as AEther Binding (the current one) produces in 50 turns.

You seem to assume we spend power on casting skill in the late game because it's worth it. Not really - at least not past 300. We spend it on that because there is nothing else to do with it. Research? All done already and Spell of Mastery is not needed when going for a military victory. Mana? Gold pays for all the cost if you have a large empire. You don't need either - except in the first 5-10 turns of a major new war when combat spending is huge.

[Nelphine]

If your opponent has spell blast, every overland skill is worth it. If you have to Garrison cities you conquer, because you're an AI, every skill is worth it. An AI will make use of every scrap of skill up to about 2000 or so. In my hard game, I obviously don't need more, but on impossible, I would.

Yes, overland skill is hugely important.

And if you can cast aether binding you probably have spell blast. You can stop your opponents disjunction.

You sound like you're balancing aether binding around recasting it - but all the very rares I listed are balanced around having it last. Why would you treat them differently?? Doesn't that mean all the very rares are completely worthless because it takes them 10+ turns to pay for themselves?

Why is aether binding the only one that more that pays for itself in one turn, when its not even very rare?