Caster of Magic II Spell System overhaul discussion

[roarmalf]

If we accept going in that direction,  we could choose from one of these effects :

A. Enchanted unit gains Wind Walking and +2 overland movement speed.
B. Enchanted unit gains Wind Walking and it has a minimal overland movement speed of 6. (the spell already does his btw except for "minimal 3")

I pick option B just for safety and avoiding "crazy fast stacks" on overland.

I think that at the rarity and investment in casting it on multiple units, plus being vulnerable to dispel... it just needs something that makes it great. Having crazy fast stacks is great, but not game breaking (with the new Raze rules). Some turns it just does nothing, since you could already reach your next target. I would still take Invisibility, Mind Storm, Storm Giant, and Uranus' Blessing before it in almost any build.

I think option A is better.

[Cruel100]

Even if that happens I can't see this spell going in a direction to keep its original puporse: improving movement on overland map.

Actually, what if we did exactly that?

The maps are larger and instant razing has been removed from the game so being able to move faster is not as much of a balance issue as it used to be but also more desired to have at least on the "movement" realm. You can't leave the city and move to the next one after conquest either way - unless you already killed every enemy army nearby but then you are anything but fast - although having more speed does help reaching the next city in 1 turn instead of several in the odd case they are more than 4-6 tiles apart from each other.
Aside from collecting lair treasure faster, and possibly AI attacks coming from outside your scouting range more often, I see no other major downsides.

If we accept going in that direction,  we could choose from one of these effects :

A. Enchanted unit gains Wind Walking and +2 overland movement speed.
B. Enchanted unit gains Wind Walking and it has a minimal overland movement speed of 6. (the spell already does his btw except for "minimal 3")

A. would be relevant in all cases but could result in some crazy fast stacks, while B would limit speed at Doom Bat rate but means the spell is useless for Life wizards. (Endurance+Discipline on elite warship is 6 moves.)
Considering the spell is in a high research cost bracket, A might be the better choice.

Yes, it sounds good. B option.

[massone]

It might actually be a good idea to mix the two ideas and do

"Ruler of Heaven
All of your global enchantments are 100% harder to dispel.
All of your religious buildings produce 2 more power."

That still isn't nearly as good as Life Force on power production, but the combo potential with Dark Ritual (and Cult Leader) exists, and dispel resistance is still good.

It does become an economy spell that way though which we didn't want but no matter how much I think about it, I can't come up with an idea for a Life combat spell that isn't healing or buffing.

I think that's too underpowered for a Very Rare spell now. 100% more resistance only cancels out Aether Binding, a mere Uncommon spell (which affects non-globals and has the SP gain too) and is weaker than Runemaster.

It should be at least 200% resistance. I also don't think there's a need for yet another economy effect in Very Rare. Life Force and Enlightenment are already extremely powerful, and Archangel actually serves as an economy spell too.

How about replacing the second effect with:
After every combat, you can revive a unit that died. It will respawn in the closest owned town with a religious building. The unit must not be a Hero, Undead, or a Combat Summon.

[Seravy]

After every combat, you can revive a unit that died. It will respawn in the closest owned town with a religious building. The unit must not be a Hero, Undead, or a Combat Summon.

I actually considered an effect like that but we already have it in Supreme Light (ok, it only regenerates caster and Life creatures units, but all of them) and Raise Dead (as many units as you are willing to pay for and can afford come back basically).
Unless we remove the reviving effect of Supreme Light, there is no need for another spell to be doing that.

(Are we happy with Supreme Light btw as is?)

[Seravy]

An idea to make Chaos uncommon slightly better.

1. Remove Insulation, but keep it as an Item Power.
(The original idea was that this spell is effective to protect heroes against Chaos wizards but the item power can do that well enough and Enchant Item is now affordable if you don't put too many powers into the item. I don't think we really need a spell that blocks Flame Strike at uncommon.)
2. Fill the spell slot with :
Sky Fires
Global Enchantment
In each of your battles, in every combat turn except the first three, there is a 10% chance a Fire Bolt spell will hit a random enemy unit.

(maybe 15%?)
Excluding the first few turns for the obvious exploit of sending a single spearmen or something to deal damage.
It's basically 2-3 extra Fire Bolts per combat, so it's as good as having 20-30 more casting skill which is significant early on, and even better, comes at no mana crystal cost.

Removing Insulation as a spell also allows us to have Inner Power affect units if they have the immunity ability without having to exclude the case where the ability is granted by a buff.

Edit : If that's too unpredictable, we can make it always do exactly 2 bolts at a random turn count (predetermined at the start of the battle), or always on the same turn (like, always turn 7 and 14).
Being able to deal damage without spending mana is a bit worrying though but wizards should be able to do something about the unit attacking and monsters won't go down to 2 fire bolts anyway and unless one dies, nothing is actually achieved.

[htester]

I would reduce to turns by 2 (5 and 10) to make more agressive and not make chaos players "stalling" for time until a second firebolt hits at 14. I was going to propose swtiching the research cost of Insulation and Mystic Surge but this new Global could be added. Also I would switch firebolt's for fireballs as I can't see firebolts helping that much specially one that comes at turn 14 and at uncommon tier where most units are multifigure.
2 fireballs in battle is much less than a firestorm on overland. Instead of being researched to cover for the lack of firestorm this spell would probably be researched much later at rare tier or never if you can't barely guarantee 2 fire bolts.

[Seravy]

Fireballs are not a bad idea but it has two problems
-Fireball spell is also uncommon. If I can get it autocast for free, I will be less interested in researching the spell itself
-Fireball does way less damage on anything that is single figure, but way more on anything that's many figures. You don't control what gets hit so depending on your luck (or they type of enemy present), it's either a lot more powerful than it should be or much weaker.

If we agree this global is better than Insulation, I'll add it to the spell tables and we can add the effect after we decide on the details. Turn 5 and 10 sounds fine.

[htester]

Fireball spell is also uncommon. If I can get it autocast for free, I will be less interested in researching the spell itself

If the spell has to be common tier I would set to autocast Warp Creature or Shatter as they are the only commons who could possibly change the outcome of a battle. The only single figure at uncommon tier is basically Water Elementals as Night stalkers might not even be affected thanks to invisibility (ok there's Guardian spirits, Ghosts... Being generous, maybe a hero counter if we choose firebolt).

[Slingers]

It should be at least 200% resistance. I also don't think there's a need for yet another economy effect in Very Rare. Life Force and Enlightenment are already extremely powerful, and Archangel actually serves as an economy spell too.
How about replacing the second effect with:
After every combat, you can revive a unit that died. It will respawn in the closest owned town with a religious building. The unit must not be a Hero, Undead, or a Combat Summon.

I actually considered an effect like that but we already have it in Supreme Light (ok, it only regenerates caster and Life creatures units, but all of them) and Raise Dead (as many units as you are willing to pay for and can afford come back basically).
Unless we remove the reviving effect of Supreme Light, there is no need for another spell to be doing that.

I really like massone´s idea. Normally one would assume that such events are based on luck. But if you have a part-time job as the Gatekeeper of Heaven, why not choose the unit?  Such a spell could include normal units, heroes and Life/Nature summons bc of their “good” alignment. 
The chosen unit could reappear next turn in the nearest owned town with a religious building with only 1hp left, even if the battle was lost - without buffs or artifacts ofc – regardless wether the damage was “irrecoverable”. That way, the effect of the spell would be very different from that of Supreme Light or Raise Dead.

[Seravy]

Getting units back from lost battles would be different, yes. I prefer not allowing the revival of the irrecoverable dead though.
Problem is, we already agreed we don't want effects that require losing battles to be useful.

I also like the idea but I don't think it will work so well.

There are other issues as well for example the respawning unit will get pushed outside if the city is full, and as its weakened and alone, it will be attacked again...and revive again and get attacked again in an endless loop, each time giving you a chance to destroy an enemy army with spells. In fact regardless of how it works, if you can keep a unit from a lost battle that is a free ticket for infinite combat spellcasting, as long as you can bait the enemy into attacking the unit which they will do most of the time.