Caster of Magic II Spellweaver idea

[Seravy]

I have been thinking about dual realm combinations and a particular one that came into mind was Life+Chaos.

The main combo for this realm is the very rare globals, you can either stack the military globals to have absolutely crazy normal units (Doom Mastery, Holy Arms, Chaos Surge, Crusade, Blazing Eyes, Charm of Life) or stack the economy globals for an economy or SoM based victory (Enlightenment, Life Force, Armageddon, Doomsday, Meteor Storm) but there is a problem with that.

This strategy has no flexibility. You options are pretty much :

5+5 Books and pick Runemaster to get a global enchantment for most of your very rare spells but it'll be a mix of the two kinds.

7+5 Books to guarantee one very rare and one rare spell in one of the two realms (like Holy Arms+Crusade or Doom mastery+Chaos Surge) but nothing in the other.



In both cases it's up to luck whether you get the spells needed for the combo or not.



So I was thinking, this could work so much better if there was a way to pick more guaranteed very rares for dual realm wizards somehow. Somehow being a retort. And we have a retort that's related to spells and is underused I think. Spellweaver. Which conveniently already costs 2 full picks which is really the least a retort that gives multiple guaranteed picks should cost.



So this is the idea, we could add the following secondary effects to Spellweaver :

Your third spellbook in each realm allows an additional guaranteed rare spell.

Your fourth spellbook in each realm allow an additional guaranteed very rare spell.

[Anskiy]

Interesting idea, problem with utilizing very rares for me is their absurd research costs. If Spellweaver could guarantee a specific very rare from a realm of magic showing up as the first one, it would promote building strategies around very rare spells from combo realms. Of course, that would also remove the luck factor with very rares, but it's not a big problem for me. If you can consistently survive in decent shape until the first very rare shows up, you deserve to be able to guarantee it.

[massone]

It sounds interesting. Guaranteeing an extra rare and very rare in 2 realms is quite powerful. I would probably start using spellweaver in my best life-sorcery play as well in that case. As it stands, I find spellweaver to be a reasonably competitive retort already, the only reason it's not in my top tier strategies is because cost reduction is less powerful than faster advancing research in the long-run. Essentially, what I found is that I run out of city/global enchantments to cast before I get access to the next enchantment, causing casting skill waste while I wait for research to finish. If I can also use it to guarantee a couple of Rare spells, then that significantly changes the dynamic. Guaranteeing certain Very Rare spells is a big deal as well, in builds that otherwise have no guarantees.

[zitro1987]

Or we could make spell weaver a 1-pick retort with a weaker (20%) bonus, allowing 1 additional book

[jhsidi]

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the guaranteed spell picks idea. I feel like Channeler and Runemaster have a good method of influencing what spells you'll receive: you're more likely, but not guaranteed to get specific picks.

Spellweaver giving guaranteed, specific spells feels worse. A big part of Master of Magic is the gamble of what you'll get in your spellbook. I love the gamble of seeing what spells I'll get for my book selections, the tension of having to really think about how many books to select in order to increase the likelihood of getting the spells I want, and the race to take lairs and nodes that may also grant those spells. Having a retort that completely bypasses those decisions feels wrong.

I'm also not a big fan of 2 retort picks with a single effect. Channeler offers 2 very powerful effects (distance and maintenance) plus one utility effect (combat spell likelihood). Runemaster offers 3 powerful effects with one utility effect. These are good retorts that fit a lot of playstyles.

Compare that to Guardian, which has one very powerful effect (combat stats) paired with a very mediocre effect (growth cap) that's nearly irrelevant for any kind of conquest-oriented playstyle. As far as I'm aware, Guardian has not been widely selected by players and still feels kind of incomplete. Even worse is Warlord, which has a single effect that's really only great for Life players; especially since Tactician came in and, for a single pick, offered a superior option for any hero-oriented playstyle. Fewer powerful effects = less interesting.

Spellweaver as-is is just boring; powerful, useful, but it reduces my spell variety for a single effect, and that single effect is only targeted to specific playstyles (Life players being, again, the biggest audience). So I can agree with wanting to improve or replace it.

[Seravy]

The problem is Chaneller or Runemaster doesn't help enabling specific 2 spell combos. For uncommons and rares you can do that by simply having enough books to pick the spells but for very rare, you can't do that. It takes 7+6 = 13 picks to have a rare+very rare spell combo which is already impossible, two very rares even more so.
There are plenty of nice 2 spell combos that include very rares but at the moment there is no way to play those other than by getting lucky. But yes, I do have my doubts about this for the exact same reason you mention.

What if it was a more vague "You have a high chance for your spellbook to contain rare and very rare spells that have good synergy with each other" type of effect instead, without guaranteeing anything?
In that case we "only" need a god algorithm to calculate the "reroll chance" of each spell as a function of spells already rolled, and have it work like the other two retorts which basically do "75% chance to roll a different spell if it's not the type specified".
And of course we'll need to manually build a table that lists which spells have good or bad synergy with each other.

Edit : This probably isn't a good idea either because the game shouldn't help the player find the spell combos.

[jhsidi]

The problem is Chaneller or Runemaster doesn't help enabling specific 2 spell combos. For uncommons and rares you can do that by simply having enough books to pick the spells but for very rare, you can't do that. It takes 7+6 = 13 picks to have a rare+very rare spell combo which is already impossible, two very rares even more so.
There are plenty of nice 2 spell combos that include very rares but at the moment there is no way to play those other than by getting lucky. But yes, I do have my doubts about this for the exact same reason you mention.

Yes, that is a good summary of the issue for me: in my view, getting lucky (or unlucky) with your spellbook is a core game mechanic that makes the game enjoyable, and offering a workaround to the luck component would deflate that balloon somewhat, even if I chose to never pick the retort.

What if it was a more vague "You have a high chance for your spellbook to contain rare and very rare spells that have good synergy with each other" type of effect instead, without guaranteeing anything?
In that case we "only" need a god algorithm to calculate the "reroll chance" of each spell as a function of spells already rolled, and have it work like the other two retorts which basically do "75% chance to roll a different spell if it's not the type specified".
And of course we'll need to manually build a table that lists which spells have good or bad synergy with each other.

Edit : This probably isn't a good idea either because the game shouldn't help the player find the spell combos.

Yeah, sounds complicated and risky. I do think there's some merit to the idea, though, if it could work similarly to Runemaster and Channeler. You'd just have to add more flags to spells. For instance, if you choose the "Military Domination" retort (bear with me, this is an off the cuff example) then you have a higher likelihood to get any spell related to empowering your military, across all realms of magic. 

That could potentially go into smaller niches, e.g. "Ranged Domination" would tilt your spellbook toward all things ranged. You'd be more likely to get Demon Lord than Death Knights or Djinn than Sky Drake; more likely to get Entangle or Earth to Mud. But then you'd have to make some calls on spells that just seem related. Do you include Inner Power? I think so; it increased ranged. But then, it increases everything else, too.

To be honest, though, I'm not sure these advanced game strategies should be retorts at all, because it's just aimed at us crusty old-timers. If you're getting new players (which I really hope you are) they won't know what combos are good yet -- and that's part of the fun. So this retort wouldn't be good for them, either.

Here's one more, completely different idea:
What if you moved "Score Modifiers" to activate from a button on the "Game Options" screen? Call it "Advanced Options". And allow choices like this through that screen. So for instance, someone who really wants to try out a game where they are guaranteed 2 Very Rare spells in two different schools could choose an "Increased Picks" setting, or directly modify how many picks they get per book. The reason for making it a button rather than a screen players are forced to pick through is that seeing tons of options is a really unpleasant experience for new players; but there are probably a lot of things that old players would like to modify or fiddle with.

[namad]

You could make spellweaver 1 cost and a new retort with a new name do this effect at 1 cost? Or is the hard limit on total retorts still in play from CoM1?

The way I see it any amazing new ideas (like this one) you have for new retorts... could just be unique new retorts? right?

[Seravy]

In theory we could add new retorts but considering we couldn't come up with anything for years, I don't think it's happening. Redesigning the UI just to add a single new retort isn't really worth it, and even this idea isn't very good.

[massone]

How about just adding extra spells to the book instead of guaranteeing anything? Then it would become pretty useful for any dual/triple realm plays, not just Life.

+1 Rare spell for 3rd book
+1 Very Rare spell 4th book