Fortress Lightning

[Seravy]

It was mentioned last week that the Fortress Lightning is weird for non-Chaos wizards, so here is the question :

Do we want to keep it a lightning bolt, or do we want to replace the effect and sound with something else?
I assume we want an Arcane spell's effect which means Heroic Shout (Recall Hero) is the only one - dispel would look silly- but for sound we might want to pick something else. Or is there some more suitable effect I'm overlooking? Of course we also need to update the help text to say something like "magic blast" instead of lightning, I'm not sure - I guess this depends on what visual and sound effect we pick.

The damage and armor piercing property would stay unchanged.

[Domon]

Btw, is embedding the effect (or a weakened one versione) in a building feasible? Juat asking if it's possible, not advocating it. Though this came to my mind during the amplifying tower thread, as a means to give alternate use to the tower.

[Seravy]

Btw, is embedding the effect (or a weakened one versione) in a building feasible? Juat asking if it's possible, not advocating it. Though this came to my mind during the amplifying tower thread, as a means to give alternate use to the tower.

It's not. Building data is swapped out of memory during combat so buildings that affect combat are impossible, at least without storing that data somewhere when entering combat.
However the main purpose of the lightning is to protect the players (including the AI) from too early attacks done by a small amount of units - having a cost to build it would be bad.

[Nelphine]

I personally like the lightning even with non chaos realms. I'd vote to leave it as is. (It seems appropriate for both sorcery and nature, and not terribly bad for death and life.)

If you do change it, I would rather a) a cosmetic change we can choose on the settings screen, or b) set based on your realm.

I don't like the heroic shout animation at all, although I'm fully aware that is completely personal opinion.

[Seravy]

I don't like the heroic shout animation at all, although I'm fully aware that is completely personal opinion.

It's not my favorite either, it's used as a necessity. I guess if someone made a different animation it could be replaced by, I wouldn't mind doing that. Ultimately, it's an animation made for Recall Hero, not something meant as a direct damage spell. (and I don't mind replacing the spell name and description either if someone has a better idea - the spell's effect - all figure hitting damage that requires a hero - has to stay however)

Good observation that Nature and Sorcery also have lightning. It's an acceptable match for Life as well (God striking enemies form the heavens), somewhat less for Death but at least it's a direct damage realm. I guess leaving it unchanged works too.

[Tlaloc]

I'm ok with the current generic lightning bolt, but f you're looking for other visual effects for each realm, you could use Ice Bolt (nature), Psionic Blast (sorc), Fire Bolt (chaos). Life and Death don't have as good effects. Maybe Star Fires or Reaper Slash would work, although I haven't seen the latter animation yet. It also might confusing if the player thinks the AI is actually casting that spell.

Colored lightning bolts (purple, red, blue, green, white) for each realm would also be great.

How would the game decide the primary realm if 2+ realms are tied for the highest number of books?

Another idea if you go this route is to slightly increase the strength of the elemental fortress attack for each book in the primary realm. This would boost mono-color wizard builds somewhat, which may not be desireable.

[Seravy]

How would the game decide the primary realm if 2+ realms are tied for the highest number of books?

There is a preset order of Nature, Sorcery, Chaos, Life, Death.

[Domon]

Can you male the lighting animation just a tad bit slower? This would be just a polish thing, as it's often hard to parse what's being attacked, but you can alway just look at the hp bars.

[Seravy]

Can you male the lighting animation just a tad bit slower? This would be just a polish thing, as it's often hard to parse what's being attacked, but you can alway just look at the hp bars.

Probably not but I can take a look at it.

...no, I don't think I can.

[Catwalk]

Is the purpose mainly for sake of making AI fortresses harder to capture?