I'll post some thoughts about the 30 ideas from the opening post that don't have green or red text on them yet.
1) I Don't know about this one. It does make the tech tree more clear for new players, but it also feel a little strange since it doesn't follow the rules and conventions of most spells. Maybe as a low cost, dispellable city enchantment that converts fighters guild to armories and stables to fantastic stables while in effect?
2) Love fossils as a resource. Maybe something for the ocean tiles as well?
5) I like this idea a lot. I suggest adding either a flying, ranged or casting creature to the Life realm at around unicorn power level, to make the pre-angel Life nodes have more diversified and capable defenders. Maybe cherubs/cupids with a ranged bow attack? Both Death and Life may be too powerful at the upper end of possible defenders. You usually need spells from a realm other than Life or Death to properly deal with archangels or demon lords. Buffed shadow demons and wraiths will also be extremely scary, figure counts for late game death creatures may need to be revised. I definitely think it would all be worth it however.
6) I'm ok with this change. Maybe at -3 to resist, but higher spell cost to compensate?
7) I agree with this. Maybe it shows just a select few tiles and then scouts points of interest such as nodes and cities in a wider range?
8) I would very much like to see artificer opponents in particular adapt a proper hero strategy. Just don't make it too common, maybe the AI needs to have the right kind of personality. Base it off a defensive threshold where the AI will tailor the initial wave of items until the Hero has enough armor, resist and spell immunities to reliably survive against neighboring wizards. If that threshold is too high for their current power level, the AI goes for a different type of strategy.
9) Agree with all those numbers. If desert movement penalties are implemented, nomads should have pathfinding on deserts.
10) Wouldn't come into play until very late, so it shouldn't take the same slot as a regular hero ability. But certainly a welcome and unique hero power.
11) If it's getting split, I'd like to see different races receive only certain parts of the set. It may become an interesting addition to the identity of the various races in regards to how they interact with the wizard's spells.
13) Expanded diplomacy in general is a good addition. I am very much in favor of new treaty types to start getting into a diplomatic relationship with a neighbor.
14) Yes, definitely.
16) I've had a lot of "wars" where no hostile action was taken by the "attacking" wizard until a peace treaty was proposed. I think that borders should be taken into consideration in regards to military action.
17) Great idea, I was actually going to propose this myself. Could even be a part of losing a town to rampaging monsters. Rather than 2 chaos spawn and a gargoyle guarding 20 gold, the game will pick an appropriate treasure to the encounter. Random events that senselessly punish or reward a player can also be moved to this category. Pirates steal 30% of gold reserves from all players and hide it in a lair. The gods seal away an artifact of unimaginable power in a new temple. A wealthy merchant's mansion is plundered by monsters and falls into ruin.
18) Maybe the cost reduction effect is only for the player who cast the spell and the cost penalty only impacts the opposing player in combat?
19) That's actually the behavior I expected when normal unit casters were added to the game. I entirely agree as long as the scaling is not too high. Recruits should probably have a pool below the current standard to compensate.
20) Big penalty for dwarves, who rely on roads to move steam cannons around. Maybe dwarven engineers can build magic roads (regardless of which plane they're in) and the rest cannot? I don't think Myrran roads should glow if they don't provide any benefit, it will confuse returning players.
21) Anything that further elaborates on racial identities is a very welcome addition.
22) I think I prefer the vague way it's currently set up.
23) Seems like a fair change.
24) I think there should just be a diplomatic penalty to having too many allies. Every new alliance past the first would increase tension with existing allies and be harder to form.
26) I'm in favor, but this is very much related to how #1 on the list gets implemented. Also, wizard's guild shouldn't increase experience for shamans and priests, that's Cathedral's job.
27) Wouldn't miss it if it went away entirely. Any place it goes that's farther out of sight and out of mind is a welcome change.
28) Cute plays from the AI warm my heart. Maybe for a certain personality of wizard?
29) I never had issues with Warp Node, but it does unnerve me that the AI immediately charges at every empty node with a magic spirit regardless of their knowledge of the map. Welcome change, but not something I'm particularly concerned about.
30) I like the idea of being able to capture outposts. Other than that, I think that every spell that destroys building should be able to destroy outposts.
My own wishes and ideas in no particular order:
1. Nodes should be something that the AI recognizes in treaties. Taking over a node should be a hostile action.
Wizard Pacts are nearly impossible to maintain. If you don't already have a spearman stationed on a node on another wizard's land, they will build on outpost right next to your node and complain endlessly. They will also take over nodes regardless of diplomatic relationships and put troops on them like it's no big deal. I would like for Wizard Pacts to exclude nodes and for the act of taking another wizard's node to be seen as a major diplomatic event.
2. Chaos should have better early game options.
Chaos is the weakest realm when it comes to taking your first node or even so much as the 100 gold lairs.
A quality of life improvement to reduce time spent running around or holding down the "D" key. When the opponent is neutral, has no way to engage your flying units, has no ammo or mana, has below 5% chance to deal any damage at all, cannot see your invisible units or has less speed than your slowest combatant, the flee button turns into a green disengage button with a 100% guaranteed survival chance of all fleeing units.
4. More evenly distributed map resources.
The layout of the map currently plays a massive role in how the game is going to progress. I'd like to see each player given a guaranteed easy node within 12 spaces from their starting city, at least 2 easy encounter locations within 6 spaces and an easy neutral city within 16. This will give at least a small chance of victory even on very unlucky map layouts and give a more natural curve of progression to all players.
5. More control over offered mercenaries, heroes and artifacts.
A lot of my games have been greatly decided by being given a very lucky merc or hero. On the other hand, even more games have been decided by being unable to get any sort of half-decent hero and never receiving a decent item offer despite hording thousands of gold for just that purpose. I would prefer to receive offers on a set schedule rather than random intervals, so that I can plan for them. In addition, having a schedule on this event will prevent confusion with units popping in at the opponent's Fortress in large numbers on random turns. Most of all I want to be given some sort of choice beyond that of buying or skipping an offer.
6. Air travel for more races.
This is somewhat related to my comment about mercenaries in regards to how certain mercs have decided entire games for me. Nightmares and Pegasi with their high speed, strong ranged attacks and most importantly flight, are capable of utterly crushing neutrals you would otherwise be unable to even approach. The king of all mercenaries however is the Airship and the king of heroes is the Wind Mage. Having access to air travel for my troops is usually the deciding factor in the mid to late game for me. I think that the power spike of access to travel by flight can be reduced by giving access to a weaker form of air travel to the more industrious races. Dwarves, high men, nomads, beastmen and halflings might be able to build a flying machine that can transport troops. Weaker than a trireme and with no ranged attacks, but with 3-4 speed and the all-important ability to carry other units. Late game army logistics bottlenecks should no longer be an issue for either AI or human players as they are certain to have at least one of those races by that point. It will provide a natural way to group troops together for uniform movement over any terrain regardless of how unlucky the offers for heroes and mercenaries have been to a non-Sorcery player.
7. Alternative win condition.
I always wanted some sort of a "friendly" victory condition where you don't betray all of your allies one after the other and toss them into the abyss. What I have in mind is something along the lines of fighting the Antarans at their homeworld in Master of Orion 2. In Master of Magic terms it would be an insanely difficult encounter location somewhere on the map (Maybe the polar caps or mid ocean). A forgotten fortress of an ancient wizard guarded by the most powerful creatures, units and heroes in the game with a full set of enchantments and covered in protective area spells. Though not an actual player in the game as far as unit movement, global enchantments and diplomacy are concerned, this encounter would have an opposing wizard with access to every spell in the game. Perhaps the location could also be made into a multiple floors type of event where the area will need to be cleared several times to fully destroy the fortress. Defeating this wizard would be an alternative win condition for human players who either don't want to betray their friends, want a challenge at the end of their game, don't want to bother with a drawn out war or have no chance to win against their final opponent and want to try throwing their remaining troops at this location as their last desperate chance. AI players should not be able to interact with the fortress, it would be an incredibly lame way to lose the game for a human player.
1) I Don't know about this one. It does make the tech tree more clear for new players, but it also feel a little strange since it doesn't follow the rules and conventions of most spells. Maybe as a low cost, dispellable city enchantment that converts fighters guild to armories and stables to fantastic stables while in effect?
2) Love fossils as a resource. Maybe something for the ocean tiles as well?
5) I like this idea a lot. I suggest adding either a flying, ranged or casting creature to the Life realm at around unicorn power level, to make the pre-angel Life nodes have more diversified and capable defenders. Maybe cherubs/cupids with a ranged bow attack? Both Death and Life may be too powerful at the upper end of possible defenders. You usually need spells from a realm other than Life or Death to properly deal with archangels or demon lords. Buffed shadow demons and wraiths will also be extremely scary, figure counts for late game death creatures may need to be revised. I definitely think it would all be worth it however.
6) I'm ok with this change. Maybe at -3 to resist, but higher spell cost to compensate?
7) I agree with this. Maybe it shows just a select few tiles and then scouts points of interest such as nodes and cities in a wider range?
8) I would very much like to see artificer opponents in particular adapt a proper hero strategy. Just don't make it too common, maybe the AI needs to have the right kind of personality. Base it off a defensive threshold where the AI will tailor the initial wave of items until the Hero has enough armor, resist and spell immunities to reliably survive against neighboring wizards. If that threshold is too high for their current power level, the AI goes for a different type of strategy.
9) Agree with all those numbers. If desert movement penalties are implemented, nomads should have pathfinding on deserts.
10) Wouldn't come into play until very late, so it shouldn't take the same slot as a regular hero ability. But certainly a welcome and unique hero power.
11) If it's getting split, I'd like to see different races receive only certain parts of the set. It may become an interesting addition to the identity of the various races in regards to how they interact with the wizard's spells.
13) Expanded diplomacy in general is a good addition. I am very much in favor of new treaty types to start getting into a diplomatic relationship with a neighbor.
14) Yes, definitely.
16) I've had a lot of "wars" where no hostile action was taken by the "attacking" wizard until a peace treaty was proposed. I think that borders should be taken into consideration in regards to military action.
17) Great idea, I was actually going to propose this myself. Could even be a part of losing a town to rampaging monsters. Rather than 2 chaos spawn and a gargoyle guarding 20 gold, the game will pick an appropriate treasure to the encounter. Random events that senselessly punish or reward a player can also be moved to this category. Pirates steal 30% of gold reserves from all players and hide it in a lair. The gods seal away an artifact of unimaginable power in a new temple. A wealthy merchant's mansion is plundered by monsters and falls into ruin.
18) Maybe the cost reduction effect is only for the player who cast the spell and the cost penalty only impacts the opposing player in combat?
19) That's actually the behavior I expected when normal unit casters were added to the game. I entirely agree as long as the scaling is not too high. Recruits should probably have a pool below the current standard to compensate.
20) Big penalty for dwarves, who rely on roads to move steam cannons around. Maybe dwarven engineers can build magic roads (regardless of which plane they're in) and the rest cannot? I don't think Myrran roads should glow if they don't provide any benefit, it will confuse returning players.
21) Anything that further elaborates on racial identities is a very welcome addition.
22) I think I prefer the vague way it's currently set up.
23) Seems like a fair change.
24) I think there should just be a diplomatic penalty to having too many allies. Every new alliance past the first would increase tension with existing allies and be harder to form.
26) I'm in favor, but this is very much related to how #1 on the list gets implemented. Also, wizard's guild shouldn't increase experience for shamans and priests, that's Cathedral's job.
27) Wouldn't miss it if it went away entirely. Any place it goes that's farther out of sight and out of mind is a welcome change.
28) Cute plays from the AI warm my heart. Maybe for a certain personality of wizard?
29) I never had issues with Warp Node, but it does unnerve me that the AI immediately charges at every empty node with a magic spirit regardless of their knowledge of the map. Welcome change, but not something I'm particularly concerned about.
30) I like the idea of being able to capture outposts. Other than that, I think that every spell that destroys building should be able to destroy outposts.
My own wishes and ideas in no particular order:
1. Nodes should be something that the AI recognizes in treaties. Taking over a node should be a hostile action.
Wizard Pacts are nearly impossible to maintain. If you don't already have a spearman stationed on a node on another wizard's land, they will build on outpost right next to your node and complain endlessly. They will also take over nodes regardless of diplomatic relationships and put troops on them like it's no big deal. I would like for Wizard Pacts to exclude nodes and for the act of taking another wizard's node to be seen as a major diplomatic event.
2. Chaos should have better early game options.
Chaos is the weakest realm when it comes to taking your first node or even so much as the 100 gold lairs.
- Hell Hounds, while powerful in packs are a drain on your mana reserves when compared to what other realms can do.
- There are a lot of very situational spells like disrupt, warp wood, corruption and shatter. Even warp creature, a spell I really like, doesn't start being useful until mid to late game. Some of the more niche spells can be combined to make room, for example shatter can be merged with disrupt into a spell that can break weapons or walls.
- Fire Elementals are inferior to all of the other common combat summon options. I'd like to see them gain non-corporeal and have part of their attack split into fire breath to give them a bit of their own flavor. Zombies make undead, Wild Boars have good stats, Phantom Warriors phase through walls and deal unblockable damage, Fire Elementals attack first and can engage air units.
- I would love to see a relatively cheap common spell that gives and improves fire breath attacks. It would have a ton of interactions with later spells and summons and give hell hounds the competitive edge they need to stay relevant in the opening turns.
A quality of life improvement to reduce time spent running around or holding down the "D" key. When the opponent is neutral, has no way to engage your flying units, has no ammo or mana, has below 5% chance to deal any damage at all, cannot see your invisible units or has less speed than your slowest combatant, the flee button turns into a green disengage button with a 100% guaranteed survival chance of all fleeing units.
4. More evenly distributed map resources.
The layout of the map currently plays a massive role in how the game is going to progress. I'd like to see each player given a guaranteed easy node within 12 spaces from their starting city, at least 2 easy encounter locations within 6 spaces and an easy neutral city within 16. This will give at least a small chance of victory even on very unlucky map layouts and give a more natural curve of progression to all players.
5. More control over offered mercenaries, heroes and artifacts.
A lot of my games have been greatly decided by being given a very lucky merc or hero. On the other hand, even more games have been decided by being unable to get any sort of half-decent hero and never receiving a decent item offer despite hording thousands of gold for just that purpose. I would prefer to receive offers on a set schedule rather than random intervals, so that I can plan for them. In addition, having a schedule on this event will prevent confusion with units popping in at the opponent's Fortress in large numbers on random turns. Most of all I want to be given some sort of choice beyond that of buying or skipping an offer.
- For example, a caravan arrives at the start of the year containing heroes, mercenaries and merchants selling artifacts. There's four choices but you may only visit one (2 if Charismatic). This would give a lot more agency to both players and AI as far as deciding their fate. The non-hero centric AI players can focus on getting strong mercenaries and caster heroes to improve their overland skill. Both the player and hero-centric AI can pick and choose the heroes they need or the ones they already have gear for. The player will be able to shop for artifacts that they cannot craft naturally or if going for a macro unit strategy, they can buy mercs and utility heroes. This is just one way to implement this sort of change, but as far as desired features go, this is the one I want to see more than any other.
6. Air travel for more races.
This is somewhat related to my comment about mercenaries in regards to how certain mercs have decided entire games for me. Nightmares and Pegasi with their high speed, strong ranged attacks and most importantly flight, are capable of utterly crushing neutrals you would otherwise be unable to even approach. The king of all mercenaries however is the Airship and the king of heroes is the Wind Mage. Having access to air travel for my troops is usually the deciding factor in the mid to late game for me. I think that the power spike of access to travel by flight can be reduced by giving access to a weaker form of air travel to the more industrious races. Dwarves, high men, nomads, beastmen and halflings might be able to build a flying machine that can transport troops. Weaker than a trireme and with no ranged attacks, but with 3-4 speed and the all-important ability to carry other units. Late game army logistics bottlenecks should no longer be an issue for either AI or human players as they are certain to have at least one of those races by that point. It will provide a natural way to group troops together for uniform movement over any terrain regardless of how unlucky the offers for heroes and mercenaries have been to a non-Sorcery player.
7. Alternative win condition.
I always wanted some sort of a "friendly" victory condition where you don't betray all of your allies one after the other and toss them into the abyss. What I have in mind is something along the lines of fighting the Antarans at their homeworld in Master of Orion 2. In Master of Magic terms it would be an insanely difficult encounter location somewhere on the map (Maybe the polar caps or mid ocean). A forgotten fortress of an ancient wizard guarded by the most powerful creatures, units and heroes in the game with a full set of enchantments and covered in protective area spells. Though not an actual player in the game as far as unit movement, global enchantments and diplomacy are concerned, this encounter would have an opposing wizard with access to every spell in the game. Perhaps the location could also be made into a multiple floors type of event where the area will need to be cleared several times to fully destroy the fortress. Defeating this wizard would be an alternative win condition for human players who either don't want to betray their friends, want a challenge at the end of their game, don't want to bother with a drawn out war or have no chance to win against their final opponent and want to try throwing their remaining troops at this location as their last desperate chance. AI players should not be able to interact with the fortress, it would be an incredibly lame way to lose the game for a human player.
