Spellweaver

[Nelphine]

Also note, up to.. 7 books? Then just picking a book from each of 2 realms gives you 2 Commons, 2 uncommons, 2 rares, and 2 very rares, plus some guaranteed spells.

This retort gives you 2 rares and 4 very rares, plus some reductions.

So, if you have 2 realms, this retort effectively says 'i give up 2 Commons and 2 uncommons, and in return I get 2 very rares'. 'i give up guaranteed books for some reductions'.

I'd definitely err on the side of lower reductions. I think the numbers you've suggested are the MAX they can be, and lower might be ok too.
Particularly when you consider that you can technically do this with 3 realms.

Definitely needs to require 3 books from at least 2 realms, and definitely only provides the bonus if you have at least 3 books in a realm.






Other very interesting note:
So, I consider this, for 3 realms, to be reasonably balanced against the retort cost.
However, as shown by the numbers I just put up, this retort is almost perfectly balanced for 2 realms, against book cost.

This to me seems to imply most retorts are still 25-50% than a book.

[zitro1987]

I really like the idea we have. Hopefully it is strong enough for just 2-color wizards (why I was suggesting an extra rare or very rare if 5+ books of a realm).

Nonetheless, the need to have a minimum requirement of 8 books (or even 9 books) is required to prevent retort from wrecking the book/retort system.

[Seravy]

It's wrecking the system no matter what, as

The advantage of playing multiple realms is still available for you (more spells received from external sources, trading and looting banished wizards) but now with the advantage of playing mono at the same time (more very rares and lower casting costs).

I think we need a different idea, it's not good if dual realm can be as good as mono but still enjoy the benefits of being dual (more combos, more trades, better diplomacy, more versatility etc). At least the retort ties it strictly to late game but even then, idk. Being dual has plenty of early benefits on its own (trading and diplomacy specifically, but you even get more common spells before trading.).

[Bahgtru]

It's not as good as mono. It is a serious drawback at the beginning - less tower mana and skill, even more for the AI considering that it multiplies the tower's mana (which IMHO should not happen). And that is compounded by missing on the spell cost reduction.

It's a good idea because it offers possibilities later at a cost now.

[Seravy]

Okay there are actually so many things to consider I think it's best if we make a table so we can do a fair comparison.
   

So 12 books offer the most starting mana and skill,  but are generally inferior to the other options.

Picking 12 books in a 6+6 or 4+4+4 distribution gives a good early game (diplomacy, more commons to research, more mana and skill) so it has some merit although for early game you usually want some "early" retort like alchemy, warlord, archmage, etc instead. Still, while not top tier, they are at least playable and have some advantages over other options.

Picking 10+2 books is a weird mix that's kinda inferior to all other options, only really worth it if you want to play a 10 book game but need a specific common from another realm - which actually is a frequent enough case as we designed some commons to be desirable enough for that. Overall this is probably the weakest of all the above options but offers a nice middle ground of having good early and late game at the same time.

10 books with 2 retorts offers the most solid gameplay - faster research, more spellcasting, but it's actually horrible for your diplomacy, trading and treasure hunting. So it's the best choice if you have a solid plan and want to eliminate any luck based elements.

Options with spellweaver enable the diplomacy, trading and treasure hunting aspect, and still starts you with the same amount of spells, so it gets you the most spells overall, far more than any other choice. You have the same amount of skill and mana as 10 books, but you don't get the benefit from the extra 2 retorts and you also don't get the faster research. So overall your early game is much weaker, and longer, (you even have more commons, and you probably won't research or trade for anything you would get since you can find/trade for new spells instead) but your diplomacy is much better, and you have more spells to use early, allowing you to survive it anyway.

Ok, this actually looks reasonably balanced so far. If we require 10 books total for Spellweaver, there are no problems.

Now let's see a table where we pick 2 more retorts.

   

As you can see the 12 books and the 3 realms options are gone, we don't have picks for those.
So it's a direct competition between mono and dual spellweaver.
I think this is where the design is broken - dual is strictly superior. You get more of pretty much every spell tier, can trade for and find them, have better diplomacy, mono has no research bonus and its capacity to cast spells isn't that significantly higher anymore, so overall, dual's early game is better (trading, diplomacy, more commons) and their late game is also better (more very rares). Furthermore, as both have 2 additional retorts, and those retorts can be used to improve the early game even more,  any possible weakness in the early game is pretty much eliminated, while the late game benefits are obviously still there for spellweaver.

[Nelphine]

One points on the chart:
I'm not sure that dual realm is really that off balance. 35% more spells (until very rares - wait no, the very rares still cost the same with spellweaver, it just lets you know more. that line is misleading on the chart) and double resistance and guaranteed spells for strategies is.. spectacularly huge. (Given my own playstyles, picking the exact spells to win, and then getting more of those spells.. yeah, I'd take that in a heartbeat over more very rares and more spells in treasure.) Edit: Then again.. I'd probably take archmage as the extra retort for either style, so you can't list that as the extra bonus that mono gets. Given that, it might make spellweaver look a lot stronger.

But you can also compare to 3+3+3+spellweaver +1 retort (instead of 2 retorts) vs 9 + archmage +2 other retorts or 4+5+archmage +2 other retorts.
I think this is where spellweaver gets the maximum benefit (for instance, you will have 9 very rares, 9 rares, 9 uncommons, 15 commons, 6 starting commons,trade/loot/treasure/diplomacy near neutral, very high combo.
Although honestly, you'd probably take archmage as your extra retort, so you can't really use that as a retort thats different.

[Seravy]

wait no, the very rares still cost the same with spellweaver

They don't, remember we included "very rares cost 20% less to cast, and rares cost 10% less to cast" in the effect. But as you say the entire thing collapses because you can pick Archmage/Conjurer/whetever else you would include in your mono setup here as well, so you are only missing the 2 least valuable retorts of your 4 but get to have the 2 most valuable ones. So ultimately your early game potential is only marginally lower and the more common spells and better diplomacy definitely compensates for it and even turns it to your favor overall, while your late game is a lot better. (ok, so you don't get to also include, warlord for example, or alchemy and specialist, but instead you trade a lot and get into fewer wars than otherwise would, and start with more common spells and have a lot more spells to use due to trading and treasure and you can have conjurer and archmage both anyway).

And yes, you are right, picking 9 books 3 retorts makes the problem even worse (as the 10th book is worth most for mono) and that's exactly the one thing we can't disable - if we say you need 10 books for spellweaver then you can't use it on Myrror, and you can't use it with any other retort.

I think the idea itself was bad, dual realms getting fewer spells but more from trading, treasure and loot is part of the design so any retort attempting to get around that just breaks the game.

Now, if the retort added a benefit of trading and finding more spells that would be a different story (as it enhances what the build is already better at instead of giving the advantage they are missing) but we can't possibly design a retort like that (since you can't actually find very rare spells in treasure at all for most of the game, and trading for them shouldn't be made easier, especially not as a retort since it's unreliable.)

[Seravy]

After some more thinking, I think I know why I feel this retort is bad.

It's because it's a workaround. The existence of this retort basically would say "we messed up the spellbook system and made multiple realms too weak so now you always have to pick this instead of 2 of your books and that's the fix."
That's lame and there is no real reason for such a workaround to exist. If we think 2-3 realms need to get more very rares, the best way to do that is to make book 3 or 4 contain 1 more very rare, and take that away from one of the later books. Considering very rares are now pretty hard to obtain by trades, and treasure, we might want to consider that, but there is no reason to make it into a retort.

So I think we need a different retort, and if anyone feels dual realm wizards need improvement, open a thread to discuss which book should contain more spells (and where to take them away from).

(also do note I won't change the numbers on the existing Spellweaver because it's not trivial to change, at least the overland casting bonus part. It stays as is until we manage to come up with a new retort.)

[Nelphine]

Well, I've made 2 statements recently, that also hint towards books (not just dual realm but mono realm) being too weak.

In particularly, I've mentioned that having 9 books count as a full realm (so 9 books would do what 10 books do now) might be more accurate, and I've mentioned that retorts are possibly still 25-50% better than a book.

Averaging these we still get that retorts are ~15-20% better than books.


HOWEVER, we all know my playstyle bias. Therefore, I'm not nearly comfortable enough to start a new thread. I'd be curious how someone else would math out the comparison of a 9 book system vs the current 10 book system (particularly since I think the first 4 books are fairly balanced, although the change to very rares in treasure makes 5+ books far better than they used to be), but I don't think I should lead such an investigation (although I'll probably chime in a lot, as usual). And of course a 9 book system would make dual realm a fair bit harder to compare to mono, as well as making a tri realm build potentially more viable.


However, that still doesn't leave anything for retort suggestions. Maybe something that lets you change one of your starting settlers to another race? Probably technically impossible.

[Seravy]

I'm definitely not making a 9 book system. We should stay within 10 books.

Edit : I think the best would be to move the very rare from the 8th to the 4th or 3rd book, IF we deem it necessary. The 8th book offers guaranteed first turn research which is a massive feature worth a book on its own - Nature can get early Spiders, Chaos  can get gargoyles, death can get werewolves, sorcery gets Aura of Majesty and Life...well, idk Life probably doesn't care about an early uncommon at all unfortunately. Their good uncommons are too expensive to research that way. (swapping the research cost of Stream of Life could help there if absolutely necessary)