Fast Research

[Anskiy]

I noticed that too often, the outcome of the game was usually decided by Uncommon tier; Rare and afterword were mostly cleanup phases barring something like a runaway wizard, in which case it often turned into a grind rather than any particular tier giving me a noticeable advantage. So I redid all of the research costs to be more fast paced while still having reasonable timeframes for the spells. Check the new costs here, get the .ini here.

[Slingers]

Hi Anskiy! Could it be that each combination of settings like map size, number of opponents, difficulty ... has its own optimal research costs? So far I've had the feeling on larger maps with 13 opponents that the research is going too fast. Until an army arrives, it may already be outdated.

[Seravy]

That's exactly how it is, larger maps result in longer games but players have more territory so they have more resources, including research.
It's expected for larger games to reach further in the research tree than smaller games.
Variable research costs wouldn't help, it was considered as a feature during beta. Land size = more resources is a globally true statement and isn't specific for RP. So changing RP costs only would lower/increase the relative value of every other resource in the game which leads to a major shift in overall game balance.
Besides, what's the point of having different map settings if they don't play differently? So it's better if different size games are actually different in research pacing.

[Anskiy]

For what it's worth I tested my research costs on three games, two using my standard Normal/Average settings: one with a triple realm, one with mono death, and one with mono Chaos on Huge/Large landmass. The last one was done on behest of a friend who likes to play on Large maps and thinks my proposed costs have spells pop up too fast. On all three I found the research pacing to be roughly similar and within reasonable timeframes.

[Slingers]

... changing RP costs only would lower/increase the relative value of every other resource ...

Oh, of course. Alchemy retort seems to be a pretty big tampering with that balance too. I am still a long way from trying out modifications, but it´s cool that possibilities exist. Don't like "Plane Shift"? Ok, research cost: 1 million.)

[zitro1987]

While i disagree with the extreme balance breaking modification here, I do feel that certain spells, particularly economy-based and city-based, barely justify the RP and mana cost, such as altar of peace, abundance, prosperity, the weakened uranus blessing, etc.

Example of The typical rare city economy spell to be used in approx 12 cities
costs 3000-4000 RP
Costs approx 150 X 12 = 1800 of mana
Costs approx 150 X 12 = 1800 casting skill
Costs approx 40 upkeep
With all this in mind it should pay-for itself after a couple dozen turns, but the average (non retort) dark rituals, the eventual growth of abundance, the gold from prosperity, the research from altar of peace, most seem to require a good 3 yrs or more to break even from all these upfront costs and hopefully later build upon the growth. Of course certain synergies make these better, but the spell effect can feel a bit ‘subtle’ and not very game changing

That doesn't sound too bad, but if all this effort was used for summons or combat spells, you would have likely grown faster in most circumstances.

To allow a bit more snowballing and incentivize more pacific wizards i think:
-Abundance to be +10 max pop instead of a percent, a better boost that would still hit the cap of 25 too easy. Splitting gaia blessing into 2 is an increase in RP cost
-Gaia blessing to have faster change terrain effect (spell feels too uncommon-like as is)
-Change terrain to change mountain straight to plains?
- Prosperity to be +60%and cost 25 less to cast
-Dark rituals to add some power to oracles not multiplicative of cult leader retort
-altar of peace to cost just 100
-uranus blessing to give 3 more power per building and/or overland skill +1. It is weakened by making skill overland and splitting the other bonuses into a new spell

[Suppanut]

Why not add option for research to scale by map size in additonal of original setting which research cost fixed?

[Anskiy]

As far as underpowered spells go, how about Blazing March? It has no business being in Rare tier, when you get things like Flame Strike and Efreet. Aoe Flame Blade is just rarely relevant at that point, as a Chaos wizard you almost always have something better to cast in combat.

[prokolyo]

I remember having Blazing March in one game before (prob COM1) and it was pretty useful. I never played more than 2 chaos books (unless I got more from lairs).

[zitro1987]

I’m trying a variation of somewhat reduced research costs that particularly incentivizes putting power into research for common-tier stage that i think also boosts a bit mono-realm wizards. Reducing common tier research costs seem somewhat safe but it can backfire for later spells if too easily obtainable.

The cheaper uncommon research costs are not reduced and the rest of research reductions and flipping RP costs in spells within tier are small to matter to the OP i believe, but the pace feels right to me and the balance seems to be ok for lower sized maps with fewer cities - the way i alway play CoM

Reduce RP costs enough for non common spells and the balance and pace breaks down badly. I remember when the RP costs were the old way within CoM and how it hurt the balance of the game