Spellweaver

[Seravy]

Yes.

[zitro1987]

Cool, I threw a bunch of stuff to see if something sticks. It appears something did.

On suppression - maybe it would be more useful if even receiving ranged attacks adds to the suppression effect. But it might still be too weak for 2 picks and not ideal for AI.

On turn 0 buying - powerful for human, but maybe the AI could be taught to buy in bursts to make it half decent for AI.

What if it is +1 mana for 50+ cost units, and +2 mana for a higher cost unit, to encourage more advanced units?

[Seravy]

Okay, I think we can agree we don't want overland movement then. (AI stacks attacking from 6 tiles away without warning isn't really good for a strategy game either)

I'm unsure about the "power per unit" ability. Yes, making it 2 on higher value units could help but what Nelphine says is unfortunately true. The AI isn't paying (as much) maintenance for their units, so ultimately, while you get +1 or 2 power for something that also costs 1 or 2 gold, the AI gets 2 or 4 power and pays no gold. This wouldn't be the first retort that's way better for the AI than the human but the difference definitely would be the largest and it's a 2 cost retort, too. I'm also a bit worried because this pretty much breaks having to pick between a military or economy strategy - the retort allows going military and STILL get the same economy as buildings. That's way too powerful, not as numbers, but as a concept. So I'm leaning towards no. (it's also tempting the player into a suicide strategy, as the units produced which are the core of their economy, can get killed by spells any time - say hi to Fire Storm, or Final Wave! )

Which leaves the research manipulation. So, as awesome as it sounds in reality what this does is, it saves you the RP cost of the ~4-5 cheapest spells available on the book. So basically you are ahead by that much RP at all times - not exactly, as you do not get those spells, but on all spells that do matter, you are ahead that much.
So that means you have a free 1000 RP at commons, a free 5000 RP at uncommons, a free 15000 RP at rares, and almost nothing at all at very rares, those would all fit into the page of 8 spells anyway. Without even trying to calculate, I can say Sage Master will produce you more extra RP and does so by also allowing to get spells instead of skipping them. So this idea can't be done either.
I was thinking "what if it allowed you to set the research order of other players instead" but that breaks if there are two people with the retort, and "you are getting all garbage spells in your book because the wizard on Myrror has a retort" is just not a fun thing to have in the game.

So...out of ideas again then?

[Juffos]

Some sort of anti-channeler? Every battle is at 3x mana cost, but you gain eg +50% overland skill and +50% mana from the mana bar at magic screen. It would be cool if there was some overland casting retort, but the 3x would make it so that overland casting would be much preferable to combat casting.

[zitro1987]

Juffos, that might not work well with AI (easy to take advantage of their 3X penalty by throwing zombies, galleys, or other cheap sturdy units their way).

But the core idea does seem promising. I would prefer the overland and mana bonuses to be combined instead with a (you have 2/3 of skill in battle). Instead of spending a ton of mana, wizards with this retort simply can't cast as much in battle.

[Seravy]

Not a bad idea but I don't think we can do that.
For late game it's the same as current Spellweaver (who cares I can't use all my 500 skill in battle, 250 is plenty, I AM using doomstacks of 9 very rares) and for the early game, well, you wouldn't be able to cast a single Fire Bolt in combat. It would still be a horrible retort for the AI, although it does save them from wasting mana which is a nice bonus, it also cuts their combat casting short exactly the moment when they could overwhelm the player by "ok, you killed my armies, if you can stop 4 more of my Earth Elementals, you defended the city" or equivalent.
I feel the 3x cost version would be more balanced but it's definitely not playable for the AI.

The core problem is even if we do come up with a good drawback,we still don't have a good thing to add as the benefit since we decided we don't want overland skill/cost reduction as it either stacks with an existing good retort, or only affects unimportant spells.

[Ryzel]

Alright, might sound crazy but...replace the name of Cult Leader retort with something more religious themed (Mythical or Holy) since it involves powering religious buildings, so we can create...

Cult Leader/Zealotry/Inspiring
2 picks
Every time you cast an overland spell, you get a free normal military unit at your summoning circle at random depending on the rarity of the spell you cast.

- Race of normal unit matches the race of the city where summoning circle is located.
- Sample pool of units:
     - Spearmen/Swordsmen/Bowmen for common
     - Priest/Shaman/Halberdier/Cavalry for uncommon
     - Magician/“Tier 3” units for rare
     - Guaranteed “final tier” unit for very rare
     - NO settlers/engineers/ships
     - Prerequisite buildings are NOT necessary

OR

Cult Leader/Zealotry/Inspiring
2 picks
Every time you cast an overland spell, the production points of the capital city (or city where summoning circle is located, something like that) is increased by X (or X% of the mana cost of the spell cast).

[Seravy]

It's redundant with Conjurer, I rather get an extra of the same creature for every 3 I summon due to the cost reduction, than a normal unit and that is only 1 pick and has other benefits. Same deal for production except I'd have to spend the saved casting skill on a city buff or economy spell.

[Juffos]

Units and Heroes gain quintuple experience/triple xp and halved gold maintenance each turn, additive with armsmaster, can't be picked with warlord?

[Seravy]

So... how is that better than/different from picking Warlord? I mean, other than it's strictly worse as I have to wait for the effect and don't get the Ultra Elite units and still won't really get more than 1 level advantage out of it (as normal units max out after 1 level anyway due to War College, and heroes, well those would prefer Famous for extra levels.)