Chaos-Sorcery

[Desertfox]

As somebody who regularly plays blue-green, I am fond of Aether Sparks as-is, often picking it as a starting spell.
First of all, it only costs 12 mana, so for a veteran Magician unit with 22 skill, it can cast 1 aether sparks plus another 10-cost spell (e.g. web). Psionic blast costs 20, which leaves no useful amount of mana.
Furthermore, with multiple Magician units on my side, they can quickly disarm high-level magic monsters and even powerful heroes, draining their mana and magic ammo.
Aether sparks does magic damage, unlike Psionic blast which is illusion damage. Plenty of enemies have illusion immunity (most undead units, true sight). So Aether Sparks is more versatile.

Sample matchup: bunch of draconian magicians versus bunch of angels (or even arch-angels): the angels have illusion immunity so psionic blast is useless. However, if the magicians web the angels they become ground units, and a follow-up Aether Sparks drains enough mana so that the angels can't heal each other. The draconian magicians can then fire their ranged ammo with maximum effect.


Hell Hounds' strong point is that they can attack flying units. As a regular Draconian player, groups of enemy Hell Hounds worry me a lot in the early game.

I often have to choose between summoning Wild Boars or Phantom Warriors in combat. Wild Boars tend to be stronger in general, except against armored units (like webbed gargoyles) or in sorcery nodes (phantom warriors have 7 figures, so the +2 attacks bonus in sorcery nodes becomes considerable). So both are worth having, and which one is better is situational.

[Hadriex]

Perhaps you could give fire giants a casting skill of 15?

Impermanence is interesting, I personally dislike spells that have multiple unrelated effects and/or narrow targeting (wall crusher or giant's strength but only on combat summons in this case) but I seem to be the outlier on that.

Hell hound could become like demons, where you can summon them both in and out of combat. Freeing up fire elemental to be a special combat summon available only to fire giants (stats may be adjusted). This would give you 1 common chaos spell slot to write a new spell.

[Anskiy]

I approve of making Hell Hounds a dual purpose summon.

I also think Fire Giant needs some alterations to make it stand out vs. Water Elemental, maybe it should gain a bit more armor, alongside Large Shield? I like giving it some small amount of MP too in lieu of its fireball charge.

although maybe Chaos can already buff the attack strength of zombies?

Yeah, it can, through Blazing March. But that's a pretty late game buff, and Chaos needs all the help it can get anyway.

[mewcatus]

Still in the process of modding the current spell list, but I added quite a few modifications, as well as new spells to even out all the Realms.
   

As for the exact details, refer to the google slides below. Feel free to take ideas if you need to.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1...sp=sharing

With regards to summons, I kept their base forms as it is, but gave most Common/Uncommon Summonings evolution forms, that even allow they to shift to other realm types (Sort of a cross pollination). This ensures that the base summon itself is not imbalanced out of the gate, for getting to its higher tier form require time and specific geographical locations.

Spell wise, I gave cross realm, as well as cross rarity/turn locked/Retort related synergies to make the Spells more attractive.

Balancing/debugging is a tough one though, been at it for months, and still having issues and fires to put out.

[Seravy]

Combat summoned Hell Hounds would be too powerful. Their fire breath relies on positioning (only works on attacks, not counterattacks) and if you can make them appear on any tile, they'll be able to attack twice during their turn immediately taking full advantage of the breath attack, and possibly even take out flying units. Their 16 health is also way too high for a common Chaos summon.

Impermanence is interesting, I personally dislike spells that have multiple unrelated effects and/or narrow targeting (wall crusher or giant's strength but only on combat summons in this case) but I seem to be the outlier on that.

It's not ideal but if it's the best for gameplay, it's probably worth it. Maybe we can come up with a wording or spell name that makes those unrelated effects feel more related somehow?

The optimal effect from a gameplay perspective would probably be :
Melee units gain Wall Crusher. Noncorporeal units gain 1 attack and defense. Combat summoned creatures gain 1 attack and defense.

Alternately we could try giving a similar effect to a different spell but I think Disrupt is by far the one that needs some upgrade. It's not even that weak as a spell (it's effectively a 2 armor debuff that can apply to a larger number of units if used properly) but if I'd have to vote for the most boring spell in the entire game, it'd be a top candidate.

I also think Fire Giant needs some alterations to make it stand out vs. Water Elemental, maybe it should gain a bit more armor, alongside Large Shield? I like giving it some small amount of MP too in lieu of its fireball charge.

I was considering Resist Elements but Large Shield is certainly an option. However regular ranged attacks are already pretty worthless against Chaos/Sorcery while magical ones can be a threat. Albeit, at that point, might as well kill those magicians with some fire bolts or psionic blasts. At this stage of the game it's unlikely to see anything more powerful. Fire Storm also counters them if available, but dual realm players have a low chance to get it, especially early enough.
Giving the MP would enable a combo with Focus Magic, question is which Chaos spells would get unlocked by that buff and which ones do we even want to unlock?

[Slingers]

... I think Disrupt is by far the one that needs some upgrade ... if I'd have to vote for the most boring spell in the entire game, it'd be a top candidate.

Disrupt has its unique niche uses, such as opening a back door in city walls for defenders. Are there people around who don't normally use walls? ;p  If it gets removed, I would prefer the spell to only be disabled in Spells.ini so that it can be easily reactivated in a Mod.

An additional effect of Disrupt could be to remove the type of rocky terrain that units cannot normally enter... if the AI could learn to use it, perhaps to deal irrecoverable or unavoidable bump damage to nearby units . That would be an upgrade to situational area damage already.

[Hadriex]

Here's a idea that's a little out there. Alter the role of water elementals. Lower ammo to 2, add regen 0, and when one dies it summons a smaller (weaker) water elemental on the tile. The idea being that sorcerors put these between themselves and their foes.

This would make it a better target for immolation and distinguish it from fire giants.

[Anskiy]

Disrupt has its unique niche uses, such as opening a back door in city walls for defenders. Are there people around who don't normally use walls? ;p  If it gets removed, I would prefer the spell to only be disabled in Spells.ini so that it can be easily reactivated in a Mod.

An additional effect of Disrupt could be to remove the type of rocky terrain that units cannot normally enter... if the AI could learn to use it, perhaps to deal irrecoverable or unavoidable bump damage to nearby units . That would be an upgrade to situational area damage already.

IMO Disrupt's effect would be better served by granting all your units wall crusher. That way you could use it more reliably in defensive scenarios too.

[Suppanut]

Disrupt has its unique niche uses, such as opening a back door in city walls for defenders. Are there people around who don't normally use walls? ;p  If it gets removed, I would prefer the spell to only be disabled in Spells.ini so that it can be easily reactivated in a Mod.

An additional effect of Disrupt could be to remove the type of rocky terrain that units cannot normally enter... if the AI could learn to use it, perhaps to deal irrecoverable or unavoidable bump damage to nearby units . That would be an upgrade to situational area damage already.

IMO Disrupt's effect would be better served by granting all your units wall crusher. That way you could use it more reliably in defensive scenarios too.

If defending side have it would pretty much guerenter destroy their own wall during attack or defend, which is undesirable.

[Seravy]

Disrupt has its unique niche uses, such as opening a back door in city walls for defenders. Are there people around who don't normally use walls? ;p  If it gets removed, I would prefer the spell to only be disabled in Spells.ini so that it can be easily reactivated in a Mod.

An additional effect of Disrupt could be to remove the type of rocky terrain that units cannot normally enter... if the AI could learn to use it, perhaps to deal irrecoverable or unavoidable bump damage to nearby units . That would be an upgrade to situational area damage already.

IMO Disrupt's effect would be better served by granting all your units wall crusher. That way you could use it more reliably in defensive scenarios too.

If defending side have it would pretty much guerenter destroy their own wall during attack or defend, which is undesirable.

Wait, Wall Crusher can destroy the owner's walls? Was it always like that or is it a bug? Does it also happen when attacking from the inside to the outside, or only if the defending player walks out, allows the enemy in, and attacks from the outside?