Caster of Magic II Brainstorming Megathread

[Slingers]

In his last video, Hadriex came up with a good idea to improve the UI. Today while cutting trees it was interesting for me to think about it. It was about the multicasting of spells in late game, where you often have to deal with mass production and turns that are getting longer and longer. I would like a clumsy solution using the mouse and a hotkey solution. Maybe the latter already exists or was it planned? For example, you could hold down》Alt《while clicking in the spellbook and thereby program a predetermined instant cast key, which you then only press repeatedly. For a mouse solution, a button in the area of the spell in the book could become active, if there is enough casting skill to cast this spell several times during the same turn. "Instant" could get replaced by a red "Multi" button, for example. This could be used to open a pop-up menu that might have the name of the spell as a heading and below that you could choose from a list how often the spell should be cast in succession. 1 time, and so on up to 9 times. Numbers that are not possible would be grayed out. For example, you could conjure up up to 9 summons in a city with very few clicks. I'm just imagining to have one animation with 9 consecutive skeletons) ... or you could equip several cities in a row with the new buff, buff a stack and so much more ...

[Seravy]

I do have one related idea on my "todo" list which is holding shift while targeting a unit buff automatically restarts casting that spell. I haven't had time to even check if that's possible but it's probably the closest we'll ever get to making multi-casting faster.

[Slingers]

I do have one related idea on my "todo" list which is holding shift while targeting a unit buff automatically restarts casting that spell. ...

If it's even possible, that would be a perfect solution for all overland spells that target something. For example, imagine that you are spamming Firestorms this way. I think this could even work for multicasting the same spell multiple turns in a row as it will certainly get activated in the spellbook once casting skill is depleted. Game speed and atmosphere would improve. For an overland summoning spell the automatic repetition without a brake would generate the maximum possible number of units? That would still be useful. Wait - "holding >Shift< while targeting?" ... nope.

[zitro1987]

Darkest hour is such a poor spell: religious buildings don’t produce much power and research buildings are less relevant by the time you get this spell, not to mention it does nothing to counter life’s ‘life force’ and ‘enlightenment’

I think a third effect is almost mandatory, and i propose one of these:
1) ‘buying’ costs twice while enchantment is in effect.
2) gold buildings also have 1/2 effect
3) death city enchantments have no upkeep cost (both the defensive ones and the curse ones)

[Seravy]

How about

4. The caster's city enchantments have 100% increased dispel resistance.

Obviously, the primary use is to apply this to curses although harder to dispel Dark Rituals and the city defense enchantments are also thematic as they all have "Dark" or "Shadow" in their name. This could make relying on curses easier as Runemaster/Specialist would not be mandatory and/or it would stack with those.

Life has a spell to protect globals, so death could protect city curses/buffs.

In general city buffs don't get dispelled as much as it now requires a rare sorcery spell, so I don't think other realms would want to invest in 6 Death books to protect their city buffs, so the combo potential is low but at least exists.

[zitro1987]

Increased dispel resistance? I like it.

[zitro1987]

Would it be too much to ask if ‘ruler of underworld’ also grants poison immunity to all your units? It is not a very powerful bonus this late in the game, but it can be situationally impactful and another role death could play in late game to boost your units in some way globally (as more spells like reinforce magic got introduced)

[Slingers]

This is probably not a particularly new idea?: the Geomancer or another advisor (Chief of Scouts?) could use the graphical effect of the Surveyor to display the fog of war on the overland map.

[enna]

It would really mean a lot to my old eyes if the "hide node auras" option (which I remember being an option in the original) was restored. Even better would be an option to only display the aura over the single tile of the node itself.

[zitro1987]

Land link to be allowed to be cast in combat at 10mp, granting an additional combat spell option to buff a unit (useful with magicians)