DEATH Realm

[Kaiku]

Would it in some way, perhaps by tweaking the cost (and name), for Eternal Night to permacast Black Prayer instead of Darkness?

Black Prayer is a required first cast in nearly every battle for the other death spells to function. Darkness... isn't actually all that good, and is a double edged sword on top of that. The other effect also overlaps with Evil Presence, so it wouldn't bother me to see it disappear entirely.

I also feel Death may be one of the weaker realms late game, so even if it did turn into a little buff, I think that might be okay.

[Seravy]

Black Prayer is not symmetric. If the enemy has one, it hurts you. Eternal Night grants Darkness globally, even in battles you aren't one of the participants, for both sides.
Also, it would be a too good to get it for free, unless we get rid of the other benefits on the spell(additional resistance penalty and power production penalty) in which case it becomes too boring and redundant.

...more importantly, the name. "Eternal Night". That implies it casts Darkness.

(PS : I'm not against changing the additional effects, but Darkness should stay. Also -1 resistance on all is half of a Black Prayer by itself. More would probably be overpowered. In fact -1 resistance when you have spells like Final Wave is crazy enough as is.)

[Kaiku]

I know Black Prayer is not symmetric, but I don't see the problem, as many globals only benefit the caster. What's boring is having to cast it every battle. And I'd be absolutely fine with removing the power penalty. If you want that, spam Evil Presence.

[Seravy]

I think having a resistance penalty AND black prayer on the same spell for a -3 would be far too good and having to cast the Black Prayer is kinda the point, it costs mana which can run out if you fight too many battles at a too large distance, and gives the enemy a turn to buff their resistances in response.

[Kaiku]

I'd be fine if the extra resistance penalty goes as well. Hell, if it just gave perma Black Prayer and nothing else, I'd be happy. Yeah, that actually is boring, but I'd still feel it well worth the cost and maintenance (which can be raised as well if necessary).

I feel that Death over relies on Black Prayer, and Eternal Night not being very good (and overlaps with Evil Presence), as it assumes you only roll around with Death creatures. So it would solve both issues.

Edit: Also, I think that by the time you'd get it, Black Prayer wouldn't be that overpowered. Death has a large issue with highly buffed creatures/heroes, to which the -2 resist does little.

[Kaiku]

I admit it may not be me harping on Eternal Night so much, but more that at the Very Rare stage in the game, I feel it'd be a good time to automate Black Prayer because Death relies on it so much. So I look at Eternal Night which has the same idea and sort of does an effect like that, but a wrong, not very desirable one, and see wasted potential.

[Seravy]

ehh by this logic I could be complaining about having to cast Prayer on every battle when playing Life, or Blur when playing Sorcery. Or I could ask for spells that cast Wall of Fire on all cities at once. That sort of thing is a waste of a precious spell slot and most players would get angry at it, especially if they play low book and it's the only one they get.

No, what Eternal Night means to do is enhancing your Black Prayer so things now have -3 resistance instead of -2 which is way better. I'd rather have -1 for free with the option of -3 with Black Prayer as is than the free -2 without the ability to reach -3 at all and lose the purpose of one of my uncommon spell slots.

Besides, for overland spells, you can't cast Black Prayer at all, but Eternal Night still reduces their resistance. So your Final Wave and Great Unsummoning kills a lot more things.

Also, Darkness is a huge deal. Undead are death creatures. If you don't have plenty of those around, something is wrong.

I admit the power production penalty is not so interesting but I wouldn't say it's weak. And putting Evil Presence on all cities, especially if they belong to many different wizards, is not always an option. Especially if some of them are your allies. You might get away with Eternal Night however if the relation is high enough. Oh, and this can bypass Nightshade, Evil Presence cannot.

[Kaiku]

I'd argue there's some difference. Blur often isn't needed when fighting at range (which Sorcery excels at) or in the first turn, and there are often more immediate, relevant spells to cast than Prayer, which aren't influenced by Prayer. There's a big difference in buffs vs debuffs, especially when nearly all your other spells are affected by that debuff.

But I actually have changed my mind about it, as it'll change hardly anything anyway, and Eternal Night is more interesting than a plain perma-Black Prayer. Death is amazing at killing, for example, Bowmen, in a wide variety of ways, and they're just a little bit better at it with Black Prayer. They suck at killing Land Linked, Elemental Armored, Elemental Resistance'd Behemoths, to which Black Prayer won't make a difference. (Luckily there's nothing a horde of Death Knights can't solve)

[Nelphine]

As one comment here - my high end death games very rarely have undead. Unless I actively take time to syphon life something, nothing beyond commons reliably creates undead (plus zombie mastery). And generally there is always something much better to do than cast syphon life.

And most of the things the commons can turn into undead aren't relevant anyway, nor are zombies.

I can have 4 death knights or 4 death knights 314 zombies from zombie mastery, and 67 undead halberdiers. My ability to fight the enemy hasn't changed, and only very rarely will the outcome of the war change.

[Kaiku]

I have to agree with that, and found the random zombies that appear all over with Zombie Mastery to have no significance and in fact a bit annoying (gotta remove them from the stack and click patrol). I didn't bother recasting it after it got disjuction'd. I believe Death is very fun and worth playing for that alone, but do feel the realm may need a bit of work, aside from their dependence on a single spell for the better part of a game.

(The zombies do absolutely wreck Naga's, which I found hilarious)