Are you, in fact, a pregnant lady who lives in the apartment next door to Superdeath's parents? - Commodore

Create an account  

 
Counter magic

Hi Seravy.
First of all, many thanks to you for doing what all mom lovers see in their dream but don't have time or skills to fulfill. You are the beacon in the dark!

Now to the not important part. I am curious why you changed formula(s) for magic countering? I understand it is not linear but so is many other things in the game. This particular aspect of the game didn't bother me much. Yes, you have a chance for your spell to be countered regardless of the cost but this is the game rule applicable to everyone. If a player believes it is overpowered and unfair - they can just chose Sorcery and cast it themselves, overpowering and annoying AI players. As the game mechanics designer you might try to fix the overall countering imbalance if you feel it is imbalanced and not just making formula a little bit different. The only effect I see you achieved with new linear formulas is emotional: now player may be sure their spell won't be countered beyond some cap spell cost. Or other way around - their disspell spells will work 100% of time at some cap level. Other than that it makes no much difference. Except now we need to learn new formula and adjust strategy slightly.

Here. I calculated two tables of casting against counter magic. Suppose opponent casted counter magic at max strength (50 in classical, 80 in CoM). Now you cast some particular spell 10 times in a row. Tables below show statistics for classical and your algorithms depending on the casting spell cost. Columns are: "co" your spell cost, "att" number of attempts (always 10 - I picked this number because in 10 turns classic counter will dissipate), "suc" number of successes (your spell wasn't countered), "suc%" rate of successes, "mtot" total mana spent by you, "mexc" excess mana spent by you or total mana wasted on casting spell those were coutnered, "mexc%" proportion of excess mana comparing to what you would spent without counter.

Classic
co att   suc   suc%  mtot  mexc  mexc%
 0 10.00  0.00  0.00     0     0   NaN
10 10.00  3.23  0.32   100    68  2.10
20 10.00  4.70  0.47   200   106  1.13
30 10.00  5.62  0.56   300   132  0.78
40 10.00  6.24  0.62   400   150  0.60
50 10.00  6.71  0.67   500   165  0.49
60 10.00  7.01  0.70   600   180  0.43
70 10.00  7.39  0.74   700   182  0.35
80 10.00  7.56  0.76   800   195  0.32
90 10.00  7.79  0.78   900   199  0.28

Caster of Magic
co att   suc   suc%  mtot  mexc  mexc%
 0 10.00  0.00  0.00     0     0   NaN
10 10.00  3.30  0.33   100    67  2.03
20 10.00  4.61  0.46   200   108  1.17
30 10.00  5.72  0.57   300   128  0.75
40 10.00  6.72  0.67   400   131  0.49
50 10.00  7.66  0.77   500   117  0.31
60 10.00  8.46  0.85   600    92  0.18
70 10.00  9.24  0.92   700    53  0.08
80 10.00 10.00  1.00   800     0  0.00
90 10.00 10.00  1.00   900     0  0.00

Classic version strategy versus counter magic is pretty obvious if your goal is to save mana - wear it down with cheap spells. CoM strategy adds another way: use costly spells to bypass counter. It doesn't wear it down but still cost effective.
The thing is - it is not obvious without actually gathering statistics. I am not saying your way is better or worse. I am saying by changing formula you add more strategical non-linearity. Which was probably unintentional effect.

Original formula for counters and disjunctions is pretty smart and has perfect sense. Essentially it translates to forcing opponent to spend more mana. For example, for the counter with strength S, you would need to spend exactly S more mana on average to cast any spell successfully one time. This is regardless of casting spell cost. So the one investing some amount of mana in the counter forces the opponent to spend that much more mana for every successful spell on average. Disspelling/disjunction is not exactly like that but similar. To disspell spell of strength S you have to spend at least S mana on average. You get closer to this value if you cast disspell in small portions and you mana waste grows if you use stronger disspells. For example, you would spent about the S if you use 1/10th of disspell strength and you would use about 2S if you use 1:1 disspell strength spells.
So, as you can see, original formula was devised in an attempt to give players a simple estimation tool on how much extra efforts they should put into overcoming (bypassing counter or disspelling) malicious opponent spell in term of excess mana. Which makes a perfect sense to me.

To illustrate my point. Here are some more statistical tables.

Attempt to cast a spell against a counter of strength (counter magic, suppress magic, and the such). Player tries to cast a spell until they succeed once. In this simple scenario I assume counter strength does not deteriorate at all like suppress magic, for example, or any other overland supressive enchantments. This is not the case for combat counter magic spell but I ignore it here for simplicity just for illustrative purposes. The question is how much more mana they need to spend to overcome counter?
Columns: "co" desired spell cost that player want to cast, "sucP" success probability, "Mtot" average total mana spent until success, "Mexc" excess mana spent on top of the spell cost.

Classical (counter strength of 50)
co  sucP  Mtot  Mexc 
  0 0.00   NaN   NaN
 10 0.17    60    50
 20 0.29    70    50
 30 0.38    80    50
 40 0.44    90    50
 50 0.50   100    50
 60 0.55   110    50
 70 0.58   120    50
 80 0.62   130    50
 90 0.64   140    50

Caster (counter strength of 80)
co  sucP  Mtot  Mexc 
  0 0.00   NaN   NaN
 10 0.13    80    70
 20 0.25    80    60
 30 0.38    80    50
 40 0.50    80    40
 50 0.63    80    30
 60 0.75    80    20
 70 0.88    80    10
 80 1.00    80     0
 90 1.00    90     0

The very interesting observation is that in classical model player spends extra mana equals to counter strength. Whereas in Caster player spends total mana equals to counter strength - regardless of spell cost.
The first model makes perfect sense to me in a way that investing some mana into counter spell makes opponent to spend exactly so much more to successfully cast a spell and this amount does not depend on a spell cost. In other words, player makes bot their and opponents life equally harder in term of mana spend. Sane and understandable strategical choice.
The second model does not make sense to me in strategical way. Player has to spend exactly same amount as counter strength even if they cast cheapest spell possible. In this model it is not the opponent generic spell casting what is punished but casting their cheapest spells while expensive spells just fly freely. So the pure "counter magic" in this model turns to "counter cheap spells magic". Which, I believe, is not intended effect.

Here another one for disspell/disenchant/disjunction against imaginary target spell of cost 40. I took this value so that Caster 1.5 coefficient makes it round ten. This table shows how much mana player has to spend on average if they attempt to disspell some spell by using X strength disspells multiple time until succeeded.
Columns: "st" disspell spell strength, "sucP" success probability, "N" average number of attempts until succeeded, "Mtot" total mana spent on disspelling, "Mext" extra mana spent on top of the price of first disspell cost.

Classical
st  sucP  N     Mtot  Mext 
  0 0.00 Infinity   NaN   NaN
 10 0.20  5.0    50    40
 20 0.33  3.0    60    40
 30 0.43  2.3    70    40
 40 0.50  2.0    80    40
 50 0.56  1.8    90    40
 60 0.60  1.7   100    40
 70 0.64  1.6   110    40
 80 0.67  1.5   120    40
 90 0.69  1.4   130    40

Caster
st  sucP  N     Mtot  Mext 
  0 0.00 Infinity   NaN   NaN
 10 0.17  6.0    60    50
 20 0.33  3.0    60    40
 30 0.50  2.0    60    30
 40 0.67  1.5    60    20
 50 0.83  1.2    60    10
 60 1.00  1.0    60     0
 70 1.00  1.0    70     0
 80 1.00  1.0    80     0
 90 1.00  1.0    90     0

Here again I can see pretty simple sense in classical model. You spend so much mana as target spell cost plus the cost of disspell spell you throw at it. Which translates to simple strategy: use smaller increments to save mana.
In Caster model the batch size doesn't matter. You will spend 1.5 times more than the target spell cost whatever you do. So the best strategy is just to spend that much and be done with it. That is also quite logical. I embrace this approach. The only questionable thing is coefficient 1.5 which makes it harder to disspell. Is this an intent?
Reply

The different discussion related to counters but NOT the specific question in the first post.
I believe counters are overpowered even in original game. No wonder Jafar casted counter magic at first combat turn every !@#$% time!

See for yourself. Counters were supposed to force opponents to spend so much more mana on casting a single spell as you invested in it. So far a fair deal for a single counter vs. spell case. However, counter stays there and hurts opponents every time they try to cast another spell. It produces benefit to the owner over and over again. Of course, there are mechanisms to cap it. Combat counter magic deteriorate with time and overland counters require constant support. Even then combat counter magic of strength 50 draws about 100-150 extra mana from opponent which is 2-3 time more. I don't have statistics on overland counters but, I believe, they have about the same or better effectiveness. That an imbalance that needs attention. I'd say forcing opponents to spend 1-2 times more than you is good enough usage for counters. After all, they are not designed to deplete opponents mana reserves but to not let them cast spells! Besides all counters have nasty habit to withstand own disspelling with double strenght. One time they try to counter disspell spell. Second time they actually resist dispelling.
If someone wanted to fix that, I'd suggest to allow disspellers to bypass counters. Or reduce counter effectiveness in general.
Reply

Note that Counter Magic strength was reduced in the previous update. 80 was, indeed, too much.

Quote:The only effect I see you achieved with new linear formulas is emotional: now player may be sure their spell won't be countered beyond some cap spell cost. Or other way around - their disspell spells will work 100% of time at some cap level.
This is much more than just "emotional". Being 100% sure something that must work, does work, is a viable strategy. Being 80% sure it works but 20% chance it means I lose the game, well, I would never try doing that. Of course if you do have 10 turns of combat to try over and over again and 500 casting skill and 1500 mana crystals to afford it, good. But sometimes you can either cast the spell on the first turn of combat, or your army dies in the next 2 turns and it's too late for that. Like, Flame strike against 9 magicians, you manage to cast it, you won. You fail, you lost most of your army. So leaving this up to luck is bad.
Disjunction is similar, sometimes you can't afford to fail. If you need a specific global enchantment gone to start a war, and it fails 3 times in a row, you might end up missing your chance for that war. Disjunction is expensive so this can mean 10-20 turns easily. That's enough time for an enemy to fill up their important cities with very rare creatures and similar.

I changed the formula because the stakes are sometimes too high to rely on random chances in a strategy game. The original formula is used for cases where the stakes are small and the effect of luck is more acceptable because it's less likely to alter the flow of the game drastically : Disenchant Area, Dispelling Wave and Dispel Magic : The latter only affects one unit in the battle and second affects a lot of stuff and are meant to be used against many spells at once, so the chance of it not working out in your favor is non-existent. The first is meant to be less reliable and effective than the thing is it dispelling so again the old formula works best.

The other reason, specifically for Counter Magic, is that it's an uncommon spell. It's a weaker tier so it should not be good at countering higher tier spells. As rares and very rares - the big spells at least - typically have a high casting cost, this is a better (easier to understand) solution than using a formula that includes both cost and spell rarity. As your table demonstrates, at higher cost spellss the Counter Magic is less effective in CoM which is the intended effect.

One possible solution to have what you want (spend more mana) but also what I want (luck has reduced effect) would be to change Counter Magic and Suppress Magic to raise the cost of spells instead of countering them. But that already exists in the game called Evil Omens and it's not a Sorcery effect. Death is the realm that does "you lose mana crystals" though most of their effects simply make them disappear (Mana Leak, Drain Power, Warp Node, Evil presence) instead of raising costs (Evil Omens only). Still, denying mana to the enemy is a Death speciality. What Sorcery does is, "gain time" by not letting the enemy use magic at all, and use that time to their advantage (basically, win battle or game while the enemy failed to cast their spells).

You second table demonstrates my problem with spell tiers perfectly. An uncommon spell should not punish a very rare spell exactly as much as it does a common. That's poor design.

Quote:The only questionable thing is coefficient 1.5 which makes it harder to disspell. Is this an intent?
Yes. Dispelling should be reliable but expensive so it shouldn't be worth doing it unless it serves a significant strategic purpose. We want spells to be part of the game through their actual effect, not something that equals "cast disjunction now so it does nothing".


I don't mind changing some formulas (or numbers in them) as long as they meet the goals :

Counter Magic
-Must be weak to ineffective against rare and very rare spells.
-Spells that always work against it have to exist in higher tiers
-Shouldn't be able to counter spells too many times, the "turns" you gain by using it should be limited


Node
-Uses the same function as Counter Magic so has to be the same unfortunately.

Dispelling Wave
-Must be devastating when used against a large amount of buffed units

Dispel Magic
-Must be devastating when used against a unit with large amount of buffs
-Must be unreliable against a single buff

Disenchant Area
-Must be unreliable and generally more expensive than the spell it targets.

Disjunction
-Should be reliable to always work if enough power is used
-Should be expensive enough that it's not worth doing without a very good reason

Suppress Magic
-Other "Big" very rare spells should be unaffected

Combat global enchantments are not dispellable in the mod so Counter Magic can't be dispelled. Suppress Magic can but won't ever counter a large anough Disjunction.
Reply

(August 1st, 2019, 06:35)Seravy Wrote: to have what you want (spend more mana)
I never told I want to spend more mana!
lol
It was just an observation of my perception about using counters/disspellers and defending against them. In other words, how regular user would perceive the relative counter strength? Forcing opponent to spend more mana to successfully cast a spell is one way to look at it and to evaluate the threat. I am not saying in any way that making opponents to spend more mana is the primary intent of counter spells. I agree with you that counters are there to deny opponents their spells in first place.
I am completely up to your idea after you described it. Counters should be progressively less effective against higher spells. Otherwise, they become a game breakers. See my second post!
About the same for mass disspellers, I guess. They should be not effective against single target spell but proportionally better against multiple.

Quote:Counter Magic
-Must be weak to ineffective against rare and very rare spells.
-Spells that always work against it have to exist in higher tiers
-Shouldn't be able to counter spells too many times, the "turns" you gain by using it should be limited
Totally agree.

Quote:Suppress Magic
-Other "Big" very rare spells should be unaffected
Same motive here.

Quote:Node
-Uses the same function as Counter Magic so has to be the same unfortunately.
I don't think this is a problem. On the contrary, having same algorithm promotes consistency. Overall node countering should behave about the same - impact higher spells less.

Quote:Dispelling Wave
-Must be devastating when used against a large amount of buffed units

Dispel Magic
-Must be devastating when used against a unit with large amount of buffs
-Must be unreliable against a single buff

Disenchant Area
-Must be unreliable and generally more expensive than the spell it targets.

Disjunction
-Should be reliable to always work if enough power is used
-Should be expensive enough that it's not worth doing without a very good reason
Not sure what you mean by devastating. I guess the same I mentioned earlier - effectiveness multiplies with number of target spells. Overall, I guess, we have the same idea in mind. Disspelling should be noticeably costlier comparing to target spell so that using it against single spell is ineffective but effectiveness growth proportionally with number of target spells.


From the top of my head I have only one suggestion now. Classical disenchant area spell that disspells not only area spells but all units in area is completely insane. It should not affect individual units. Disspelling unit spells should be done by specialized disspeller.

As for the formulas and turn restriction for counters and disspellers I don't have well thought proposition now. Let me think about it.
Reply

(August 1st, 2019, 06:35)Seravy Wrote: Note that Counter Magic strength was reduced in the previous update. 80 was, indeed, too much.
A lot of mentions in changelog. Is it 70 for combat, 60 for nodes now?
Reply

Yes, it's 70 for Counter Magic and 60 for Uranus' Blessing and Nodes. (unless I remember wrong. It should be whichever amount you see at the bottom of the changelog. This was a very recent change, like, 2 weeks ago?)

Quote:Not sure what you mean by devastating.
Like, dispel spells worth several times its own cost and make the player swear and stop using buffed armies against Sorcery players. Basically, Dispelling Wave is the spell that says "no, putting 12458 buffs on this stack can only win some games, if you are against Sorcery do something else". Dispel Magic is the spell that says "Your buffed armies still win every fight but you're losing as much in removed spells as if damage spells killed 2-3 of your creatures", at least without Spell Lock, Specialist or Runemaster. Basically these two spells are to force the player to think about when and how much buffs to use instead of overbuffed units becoming an easy and quick autowin that works for every game.

Quote:Classical disenchant area spell that disspells not only area spells but all units in area is completely insane. It should not affect individual units. Disspelling unit spells should be done by specialized disspeller.
That's pretty much already a thing. Dispelling Wave hits all units while Dispel Magic hits one. Disenchant Area only hits overland city curses, it doesn't affect units or positive city spells. So you need to have Sorcery Uncommon to be able to dispel from multiple units or dispel buffs from cities.
Combat global spells are not removable, you are right, that was way too powerful in addition to removing unit spells. This at least leaves one category of spells that's guaranteed to be effective against a Sorcery player...unless Counter Magic stops it of course.
Reply

(August 1st, 2019, 06:35)Seravy Wrote: This is much more than just "emotional". Being 100% sure something that must work, does work, is a viable strategy. Being 80% sure it works but 20% chance it means I lose the game, well, I would never try doing that. Of course if you do have 10 turns of combat to try over and over again and 500 casting skill and 1500 mana crystals to afford it, good. But sometimes you can either cast the spell on the first turn of combat, or your army dies in the next 2 turns and it's too late for that. Like, Flame strike against 9 magicians, you manage to cast it, you won. You fail, you lost most of your army. So leaving this up to luck is bad.
Disjunction is similar, sometimes you can't afford to fail. If you need a specific global enchantment gone to start a war, and it fails 3 times in a row, you might end up missing your chance for that war. Disjunction is expensive so this can mean 10-20 turns easily. That's enough time for an enemy to fill up their important cities with very rare creatures and similar.

I changed the formula because the stakes are sometimes too high to rely on random chances in a strategy game. The original formula is used for cases where the stakes are small and the effect of luck is more acceptable because it's less likely to alter the flow of the game drastically : Disenchant Area, Dispelling Wave and Dispel Magic : The latter only affects one unit in the battle and second affects a lot of stuff and are meant to be used against many spells at once, so the chance of it not working out in your favor is non-existent. The first is meant to be less reliable and effective than the thing is it dispelling so again the old formula works best.
Allowing chance to affect your game outcome (and to what extend) is a very very common question. I saw this discussion for many games on many game forums. I don't have strong preference for it. However, my take is that this is a game with supposedly same rules to everyone. So it is fair. I don't see why so much fuss about it. Yes, a single chance may be either beneficial or devastating to you. It may even bring you to victory or defeat. It works the same for your opponents providing equal opportunities for all. The mastery of the player is to intelligently use or not use these chances to beat the game. Obviously, the rule set in general and the amount of chance in them in particular affect the playing style and strategy. Normally, a newcomer learns rules and then devises a strategy to match these rules best. However, sometimes people have a preference in strategy. In this case they want to redo the game rules to match their playing style better. That allows them to win more often using already tested strategy. Also probably to have more fun as some get fun from doing certain things certain way. Some like pure chance games like roulette, some like pure skill games like chess, there are also things in between like bridge or MOM.
Any rationale about adding more or less randomness stems from personal preference. So yes, probably "emotional" is not the exact word. I think I meant "personal preference".
Again, to reiterate it, I do not argue for or against personal preference. Yours does work well so far so I am happy.
Reply

Strategy means your decisions affect the outcome of an event in a predictable way. Luck means your decisions don't affect the outcome of the event, or not in a way you can predict. These are the definitions for the two words. So strategy and luck contradicts each other, they are mutually exclusive. This is a strategy game, by definition of the genre. Which means it needs to contain more strategy and thus less luck. Ideally there would be zero luck, but that makes the game boring and repetitive so a little bit of luck is still desired to provide variety. And where you are right is, how much that "little bit" means is indeed subjective. I think the game as is, offers enough variety that more luck would only be harmful, but maybe someone disagrees.

(For this same reason, the predefined items with Magic Immunity was removed, and many other "once in a blue moon" things that outright win or lose the game when they happen. As much as it sounds fun on paper to occasionally find a gamewinning, unstoppable artifact, it isn't so fun when you realize finding it just invalidated all the effort you were putting into building up your empire and spells in the past 10 hours. But as you say, this too is personal preference. )
Reply

Thoughts regarding formulas and other adjustments. I don't pretend these are good or even coherent. Although, I tried to make them so.

FORMULA
I think linear formulas for counters and dispelers are easiest way to go if we want to cap their effect for higher spells. Anything else would be an unnecessary complication.
The counter/dispeller strength doesn't need to be equal to its cost. That is an adjustment variable to fiddle with the cap.

DISPELING COUNTER
I think any counter should not block its corresponding dispeler at the strength of 100% success chance. For example suppress magic with 500 cost can be dispeled by disjunction at strength 750 (with 1.5 multiplier coefficient). So suppress magic should not have strength above 750. This changes with dispeler multiplier coefficient change. Different disspellers may have different coefficient because they have different applicability. Disjunction, for example, targets one spell only. Whereas area and unit dispelers may target multi.

COUNTER vs. COUNTER
I think counter should not counter opponent's same type counter. The easiest way to achieve it is to make it strength equal or less than cost. The rationale behind this is to reduce the benefit of being able to cast it first to counter also an opponent's counter. I understand this rationale is lame and not everybody will embrace it but this is how I feel.

COUNTER vs. DISPELER (EFFECTIVENESS AND COST)
Counter is somewhat enhanced version of same type dispeler. It works against all opponent's spells, not only one. It also stays there for some time applying multiple times. It saves dispeling casting time by being preventive. In this regard it reasonably should cost more for the same disspell strength.
Examples.
Suppress magic is essentially a dispeler of strength 500. It should cost multiple times more than that. Current cost of 1200 reflects that. However, I believe it should cost at least 5 times more than its strength as it counters all overland enchantment types (global, area, units, instant) from all wizards.
Combat counter magic is essentially a dispeler of strength 70. Unfortunately, you removed all the ability to dispel combat area enchantments so there is nothing to compare it to. Anyway, since it counters all spell types (unit, area, instant, damage) as well as it stays in effect for some number of turns it should cost more than its strength. The exact value depends on its duration.

COUNTER MAGIC DURATION
According to you rules counter magic loses strength only on successful counter. That means with initial strength of 70 it counters 7 spells exactly during its life assuming endless battle. That is different from original rule when it may not counter a single spell during its life. Each countered spell could be somewhere in range 0 to current strength. Approximating this as 1/2 of max strength we could estimate total countering effect as (70+60+50+40+30+20+10)/2 = 140. So, I guess, this is a good price estimate for it.
If you feel it is too high try to limit number of turns it is in effect. Like so many turn without losing a power. Say 3-4, for example, then it need to be recast. Other approach would be to make it deteriorate faster and every turn regardless of success to make it disappear for sure in some finite time. For example, 80 initial strength with -20 each turn seems good to me.

SUPPRESS MAGIC DURATION
In case of overland enchantment duration is replaced by high maintenance to force owner spending mana to keep it in effect. Initial cost could be lower with higher maintenance and vice versa. However, maintenance should not be too low to not let it run forever for almost free.
Reply

Quote:COUNTER vs. COUNTER
I think counter should not counter opponent's same type counter. The easiest way to achieve it is to make it strength equal or less than cost. The rationale behind this is to reduce the benefit of being able to cast it first to counter also an opponent's counter. I understand this rationale is lame and not everybody will embrace it but this is how I feel.
This does make perfect sense and I agree, but there are two problems that make this not work for Counter Magic. (It does work this way for Suppress Magic)
-Counter Magic is an uncommon. So the cost has to be low enough that you can cast it early, at the time you first research it. 50 already makes it the most expensive uncommon combat spell, so any higher is not really an option.
-The defender is meant to have an advantage, and they get to cast the counter first so there isn't anything inherently wrong with it preventing the attacker from doing the same.

Quote:However, I believe it should cost at least 5 times more than its strength as it counters all overland enchantment types (global, area, units, instant) from all wizards.
Again, I agree but the devil is in the details.
-You can't dispel something that expensive. Not only does the Disjunction slider not go that high but 3750 is simply to much to expect a player to pay for doing it. However what makes the spell not completely ruin game balance is the fact you can cast your low cost spells when it was dispelled (and assuming there is another AI left, rely on them to do the dispelling). If it never gets dispelled, you never get to use cheap spells again. (Unless you're fine with spending 500 on a 50 cost spell but doing that will likely lose the game.)
-This spell is super powerful when the AI casts it but it isn't all that great when the human player does. Very rare creatures and global enchantments are about the only thing the human player is really afraid of, everything else the AI uses is unimportant fluff this late into the game. For 2500 I would question my sanity if I tried to cast the spell. I could have 5 Sky Drakes for that much.

Quote:Approximating this as 1/2 of max strength we could estimate total countering effect as (70+60+50+40+30+20+10)/2 = 140. So, I guess, this is a good price estimate for it.
Yeah but no one has that much casting skill at uncommon.
There is a bit of a trick here. Yes, it's definitely "too good" for the cost, but it's a once-per-battle spell. You can't recast it because the last 10 will not deplete (requires casting a very low cost spell, the human player will intentionally avoid that and the AI is unlikely to do that instead of using better spells.) and even if it did deplete, by then you probably used up your casting skill already. (assuming it takes 2 spells for a successful counter, this means turn 15 in combat!)
Furthermore, this is the most you can get out of the spell. The full potential. Many times, this full potential will not be reached. If the enemy decides to spam a cost 60 spell, and wins the battle in 5 turns, you at most countered a 60 cost spell and nothing else. If the enemy magicians spam small spells and then you only use cost 30+ spells, nothing is lost except the "free" casting skill from those magicians. So while the full potential is 140, on average it will be countering less per use.

Quote:SUPPRESS MAGIC DURATION
In case of overland enchantment duration is replaced by high maintenance to force owner spending mana to keep it in effect. Initial cost could be lower with higher maintenance and vice versa. However, maintenance should not be too low to not let it run forever for almost free.
Same problem. Human player cares about maintenance and will not use the spell because it's not that beneficial for them. (in fact it might be directly harmful because it makes the AI cast more very rare creatures and less "unimportant fluff". )
Meanwhile the AI doesn't care because it receives a maintenance discount and wasted much more mana on recasting and re-dispelling the spell between two AI players than whatever effect maintenance would have.
Besides, in the very rare phase of the game, an income of 1000-3000 is normal. The amount of maintenance that actually matters this late is crazy high.
Reply



Forum Jump: