Raise Volcano

[Seravy]

As discussed in the Chaos thread, I'm willing to reconsider the casting cost of Raise Volcano.

Post your preferred cost here, in the range of 50-75 MP. 
(Do note that raising the cost will not make the AI use it less frequently, so answer the question based on what you think would be a balanced price for the spell when you are using it!)

Personally I think 50 might indeed be a bit too low, and 60-66 might be more appropriate (as other cost 60 spells like Heavenly Light also produce 3 MP but cannot be spammed)

[Nelphine]

65 is my preference.

[zitro1987]

Probably 50 to 60 to keep a reasonable return to cost ratio (closer to 6)

Assuming you don't want to provoke an early war, raise volcano at 60 would have the same returns as a common spell with much lower research cost - heavenly light (which provides decent city defense bonuses and stacks with a retort). On the other hand, during war, 60 mana is very reasonable given the destruction potential of spell.

Higher than 60 would make spell mediocre for mana boost purposes.

[crusader.mike]

I vote for 333 mana

[Seravy]

Do note that raising the cost will not make the AI use it less frequently

[crusader.mike]

even better -- ai will drain mana faster

[teelaurila]

Somewhat aside: Has someone tried a dwarf game with raise volcano to generate ores?

It's 20%(?) chance to generate an ore. So 250 mana for an ore, which produces equivalent of, say 5 to be somewhat conservative, or 7.5 with miners. With dwarves that doubles to 15. Plus 3 from the volcano itself. Results in RoI time of 14 turns - not too shabby. Not that stellar I suppose either, as the volcano actually hurts your own economy for a while.

Aside from the direct economy boost, with transmute you could also get coal + adamantium everywhere, so double unit production. But then you stuck your build to red+green dwarves. It should be decent military production anyway. But maybe too late because of the uncommon tier spells. Maybe I should try this out...

[muxecoid]

Return of investment for arch angel is 50 turns 600/12

Somewhat aside: Has someone tried a dwarf game with raise volcano to generate ores?

Would be nice if you could raise volcano on desert.

[zitro1987]

Return of investment for arch angel is 50 turns 600/12

Somewhat aside: Has someone tried a dwarf game with raise volcano to generate ores?

Would be nice if you could raise volcano on desert.

Not a fair comparison as the main reason for archangel is to have a unit, while the mana boost is often a primary reason for using raise volcano.

To make the comparison more fair, let us pretend that the cost of the archangel if it had a typical v rare upkeep of 12 is about 400 mana for the summon to be very good. The difference in upkeep is therefore  24 mana/turn. The difference in mana is about 200

The return of investment therefore is only about 8 turns even with a very low +upkeep summoning cost of 400 (low for v rare tier, and archangels are awesome)

[teelaurila]

Something very rare is hardly a comparison just for that reason. And you can't really separate the economy part of archangel/demon lord from the rest.

Another economy spell is a much better comparison, like 60 mana versus 3 per turn, or 20 RoI of Heavenly Light. But the point of volcano is that it is nigh-unlimited spammable, which is potentially unlimited exponential growth. (Which archangel also can do, but it's just too late, and can win the game without the economy part)

Dwarf+Warlord+Volcano+Transmute could be worthwhile to try, but of course it's one pick short.