Caster of Magic - replacing Planar Seal?

[Seravy]

I'm considering to replace Planar Seal with another enchantment and would like to hear opinions.

Mainly, the problem is, this type of highly tactical spell does not work well in a player vs AI game.

The player is able to decide if the spell is beneficial for them or not, and cancel (or dispel) it accordingly. The AI cannot.
This raises the following problems

-AI will seal itself on a plane while the player is casting Spell of Mastery in the other and auto-lose.
-Even if the AI uses it well, the player WILL dispel it without much of a problem, at best it'll delay them like 5-10 turns. In either case the spell is worthless for the AI.
-AI will not dispel Planar Seal when needed and lacks the ability to judge the situation.
-If the AI is taught to always dispel the spell, the player can spam it to force the AI to always cast disjunction instead of more useful spells, effectively stopping all 4 AI from spellcasting for long amounts of time (Disjunction is expensive)
-If not, then it's auto-win against the AI because they cannot break it and attack you at all.
In either case it's easy to abuse for the player.

These are my reasons for considering the removal of the spell (it would be fun in a PvP game but PvAI not really).

A few of my current ideas

1. Heavenly Inspiration. The caster, and everyone who has a Wizard's Pact or Alliance with them receives a "bonus". Everyone at war with the caster receives a "penalty". I think the best would be a research bonus and penalty, but other things are also options.
2. Law of Gods. The caster (or everyone but that would not be very good) receives benefits based on the type of books they own. Each type would grant a bonus related to that type (Sorcery +20 research, Nature more mana, Death more skill, Life maybe more gold (but would require more books as the spell is Life), Chaos, not sure what). The idea behind it is to have a spell that rewards going multicolor. Would be quite hard to code if at all possible, considering the diversity of effects, unfortunately.

[I like Serena]

In any interesting game the AI heavily outforces the player having more advantages than the player has.
That means that planar seal is always beneficial to AI, and the player only wants to dispel it to gain access to Myrran and its resources...

[Seravy]

In any interesting game the AI heavily outforces the player having more advantages than the player has.
That means that planar seal is always beneficial to AI, and the player only wants to dispel it to gain access to Myrran and its resources...

Hmm this made me start thinking and see on which condition the AI actually casts the spell.

It's "AI Mirror towns>Player Mirror towns" then cast it otherwise not.

That's actually quite solid logic considering Myrror resources are more valuable, although "player Myrror towns=0" might work better.
The only case where this backfires if the player outperforms the AI in research on Arcanus...which is actually quite possible if the player defeats all Arcanus enemies while 2 AI are stuck sharing resources on Myrror.

I think you are right, if the difficulty level is set very high, the AI will always benefit even in that situation.

-AI will not dispel Planar Seal when needed and lacks the ability to judge the situation.

This is still valid though, both when the AI has the spell in play from a previous casting, has stolen it from another with Spell Binding, and when the player has it and disjunction would need to be used.

[Hadriex]

Unless the player laughs at the foolish AI and takes the time to, without being pressured, level and gear up their heroes while building a few good doom stacks.

I've always considered Planer seal to be a benefit to me, as it keeps the most dangerous wizards at bay. Or a minor annoyance at best.

Not that I mind having that small advantage, as the AI has every other advantage. Honestly I could go either way on this one.

[Seravy]

After the previous game, I think diplomacy is working as intended and there is no need to have a spell that further rewards alliances with white wizards, especially because they are the most likely to have peaceful personality which makes it too easy to stay allied. So Heavenly Inspiration is no longer being considered.

The multicolor rewarding spell option is still there, it could, for example, grant to all of the caster's towns a bonus of
-+2 power per turn if the caster has 2 or more Death books.
-+2 research per turn if they have 2 or more Sorcery
-+2 food for 2 or more Nature books
-+3 gold for 4 or more Life books
-and +3 production for 2 or more chaos, maybe?

Spell name could be "Blessings of 5 gods" or something like that.

[Seravy]

My current idea, which I like a lot more than previous ones :

Divine Order - Global Enchantment

All combat spells cost 25% more to cast.
All summoning spells cost 10% more to cast.
All non-unit enchantments cost 10% less to cast.
All unit enchantments cost 25% less to cast.

Casting cost : 500, Upkeep : 10.

Note : "combat spells" refers to the category, the one with direct damage spells. Spells that do not belong there, like unit curses, will be moved to the appropriate location first.

[Seravy]

The new spell is in, and will be available in the next, 0.93 release if there are no problems during testing.

Name : Divine Order
Casting cost : 250 mana
Upkeep : 10 mana
Research : 400 RP
Effect :
All City and Unit enchantments cost 25% less to cast.
All other enchantments cost 10% less.
All summoning spells are 10% more expensive
All combat spells are 25% more expensive.

The effect is multiplicative, so if you had 75% cost for a summon due to conjurer, you'll now have 1.1*75=82.5% cost.
It is also cumulative with itself, so two Divine Orders would make summons cost 1.1*1.1=1.21 times more expensive.
Casting cost is low, so dispelling it should be easy if really necessary, although the effect is beneficial to all realms to varying degrees...and likewise, harmful to all of them as well.
Casting or maintaining the spell has no direct diplomatic effect, like the spell it is replacing.

For AI considerations, Divine Order receives a "desirability" rating, which is used directly when deciding what to cast, and negated for dispelling decisions. The AI rating uses the assumption that Life wizards can benefit from the spell while for Chaos and Death it's usually undesirable. Sorcery and Nature are treated neutral, they benefit from cheaper enchantments about as much as they lose on more expensive summoning and combat spells.

Divine Order desirability is sum for all wizards(Life Books-Death Books-Chaos Books)*Relation modifier, where

Relation Modifier is +2 for themselves
+1 for their allies
+0.5 if there is a pact in effect
-0.5 if there is no treaty
-1 if there is a war.

To cast the spell, a minimum of +10 desirability is needed, to dispel it, -10 is necessary, but if disjunction is already being cast for another spell, it might get targeted as long as the value is below 0 and the original target or other better targets are no longer in effect.

The diplomacy based weighting should make it possible to prevent the AI from casting this spell against you while playing heavy Death/Chaos, as long as you can forge a treaty and the amount of Life books the wizard (and their allies) have isn't excessively large.
Likewise, playing Life might make your allies more willing to cast the spell, as long as they aren't hurt by it.
Being at war has the opposite effect, they'll be even more likely to cast it just to hurt your Death and Chaos direct damage spells, and they'll avoid using it if you play life yourself.

Note that spells have been moved around in the spellbook to appear in the most appropriate place : Combat Spells only contains nukes, while unit curses are all moved to the "unit enchantments" category and get a discount.

[FrancoK]

I like the second (and final?) version, but I will substitute Tranquility instead.

Only to me happened a myrran wizard (guess who?) casted Planar Seal, then Armageddon, Great Wasting and Meteor Storm? The time I tried to Disjunct one, there where at least 3 (PS + 2 more) of them and AI kept casting them when I was able to Disjunct one.

PS is a good "companion" for Armageddon, Great Wasting and Meteor Storm IF there are no other players in the same plane of the Capital city, or, at least, no player cities.