Thoughts on aggression and resources

[Dragonfabri]

Then Philosopher stone is the only city enchantment soell suitable, but it should still provide complete tile protection at the cost of some of its current powers. Counter chance is not sufficient at higher difficulties.

[Slingers]

I disagree with a rule about number of players in same plane (especially a high number like 7)

Me too. Almost almighty wizards should not get restricted like this.) Changing the behavior of the AI sounds good. I think it's pretty mean to put a volcano in front of someone's nose. A very bad relationship, a war or a chaotic personality should be prerequisites. Strangely enough, a volcano makes the tile unusable, but a resource that may have arisen with the volcano can be used. That is why my favorite idea on this topic is to protect resources from being destroyed by volcanoes by using volcanoes. For this it would have to be forbidden that volcanoes can arise on volcanoes - regardless of the source. The uncommon global spell "Fate Mastery" could give the owner a chance that a resource will be preserved in the event of a volcanic eruption. Now the resource is completely protected from destruction until the volcano disappears one way or another.

[drake178]

I can't help but wonder. Do human players ever use Raise Volcano specifically to destroy a resource?

[jhsidi]

For a potential spell, what would be wrong with making it an Arcane spell, so it's available to all players?

The caveat is that it should be fairly expensive. So you can't just cast it willy nilly. It would be a significant decision to cast it on any 1 tile, given the lost opportunity cost from the casting skill / mana.

I realized I forgot to say so but -- I do agree with Seravy's initial proposals on just limiting which AI can cast corruption / raise volcano where. Although rather than a full ban on disconnected wizards using the spell, maybe it should just be a reduced weight. If I do happen to go to war with a far-off Chaos wizard, I think they should still be able to hit me.

Re: drake178 -- when I'm playing chaos, yes, I do use corruption and raise volcano strategically. But it's just a selective cast here and there, for instance hitting a wizard's mithril if I can't take the city. I doubt anyone spams them the way the AI does.

[Anskiy]

The solution is simple - make Corruption cost 100 MP, Volcano 200 MP, then change AI priorities so they don't spam it so much. Infact I think these two spells could do with even higher cost given the bonuses high difficulty AIs get.. terrain destruction being so trivial makes resources basically pointless in 90% of the games I play.

[drake178]

Re: drake178 -- when I'm playing chaos, yes, I do use corruption and raise volcano strategically. But it's just a selective cast here and there, for instance hitting a wizard's mithril if I can't take the city.

Honestly? Corruption, sure. But nuke it?

I doubt anyone spams them the way the AI does.

That is where I am headed with this, yes. Personally, I would never cast RV on a resource. Which, to me at least, indicates that this isn't, or shouldn't be, the primary reason to cast the spell. In which case, if it is for the AI, then I'd posit that it's doing something wrong.

[jhsidi]

@anskiy I don't agree with the super high costs. That would make the spells unusable for the player. Raise volcano has its costs set correctly for players who want to use it to gain power. We may just disagree on this but my position here is that these are good spells as-is but just need counters.

@drake178 Yeah if I have raise volcano I'll generally use it preferentially over corruption, for various reasons -- the power gain, the inability of the AI to get rid of it, the permanence of the destruction. The last applies to cities that I'm not strong enough to take for the forseeable future (those pesky Life Guardians).

[drake178]

@drake178 Yeah if I have raise volcano I'll generally use it preferentially over corruption, for various reasons -- the power gain, the inability of the AI to get rid of it, the permanence of the destruction. The last applies to cities that I'm not strong enough to take for the forseeable future (those pesky Life Guardians).

I hate to say this, but that effectively means that the AI is using the spells more or less as it should. The exact same reasons you just stated apply from the other side too. Especially that last one. Even if the spamming is reduced, you're unlikely to ever be able to rely on any terrain resource.

Anyway, if Guardian Spirit, why not Magic Spirit? Or create a specific new Arcane creature that protects resources and is more or less useless otherwise.

[jhsidi]

I don't disagree with the function of the spells. I don't think most of us do, actually? I just think there's room for improvement in actually making them part of the game. Currently I would say they're not a gameplay mechanic. They're completely one-way, casting wizard wins and receiving wizard has no move to make.

As for whether player and AI use the spells the same way -- no. But that applies to many, many mechanics. Players don't run around with endless full stacks of halberdiers and hell hounds to lose on pointless battles the way AI does, for instance. AI inevitably tilts toward mindless aggression, because... it's mindless. Players enjoy clever play and winning on both offense and defense, the latter of which is what's missing here.

[Seravy]

I definitely wouldn't want my Volcano to have a chance to create a new resource for an enemy and then have no way to cast it again on that tile, that's why it's allowed to cast it on a tile that's already a Volcano.

For a potential spell, what would be wrong with making it an Arcane spell, so it's available to all players?

It's bogging down the game. Yet another thing in your book that you have to research every game to progress but will only use in 20% of them.

Every player always having access to a way to counter a specific spell effect also makes that spell effect worthless. Specific counters shouldn't have universal accessibility and 100% effective specific counters should have even less than partial ones. So it needs to be at the very least, uncommon, in a non-Arcane realm.

We also don't want it to be in Nature and being in Arcane does make it available for Nature wizards so it's the same problem. You get free protection for your Transmute spell without requiring other realms.