Suppress Magic

[Seravy]

Because the current spell is not very fun.

Phylosopher's Stone
Whenever another player casts an overland spell costing less than 500, gain 1.25*(500-cost) gold, or 5*cost gold if the spell costs below 100.

Mana tax
Whenever another player casts an overland spell costing less than 500, gain 1.25*(500-cost) mana crystals, or 5*cost mana crystals if the spell costs below 100.

Mana Link
Whenever another player casts an overland spell costing less than 500, gain 0.25*(500-cost) casting skill, or skill equal to the cost if the spell costs below 100 temporarily for the next turn.

(gained amount can be adjusted if 0-500 / 0-100 is too little or too much, post your suggested amounts.)

[rakenan]

My real poll option is "anything other than Suppress Fun." But I chose Mana Tax because it feels more appropriate for Sorcery than Philosopher's Stone.

[Seravy]

By the way, punishing low cost spells isn't the only functionality of Suppress Magic, it also offers control against (protection from) these spells. Obviously the new versions do not, other than deterring the enemy from using those spells.
So it might be worth considering which of these spells might be still worth using and out of those, is there anything that's a problem for the Sorcery player that can't be solved with other spells.

Unit buffs are in general not worth it when it gives the enemy mana, but there are occasional cases where some might still be useful. Sorcery can deal with this through Dispelling Wave so it's fine.
Low cost creatures are not worth it and can be Banished or Unsummoned.
Earth Lore is not relevant in late game.
Change terrain is not worth it.
Transmute can be still very much worth it, but Djinn and Sky Drakes chem up normal units even with adamantium so it's fine.
Nature's Cures is worth it on doomstacks, and Sorcery had no other counter to that. However this far ahead in the game it's rarely relevant, as Herb Mastery, Regeneration, or simply powerful enough stacks that don't get hurt, or in-combat heals take care of that.
Blizzard, Stasis and Fire Storm can hurt stacks. However, in cities they can be protected by Spell Ward, and outside, using strong enough stacks is an option, these spells can be rendered irrelevant by enough armor or resistance or magic immunity.
Dispelling Wave can still be worth it and there isn't much protection against that other than Spell Lock. We don't really want any more protection though so this change is to the correct direction.
Spell Blast can be used as well. This is probably the main thing Suppress Magic was defending the Sorcery player from, as it only required 1-2 free turns for a big spell to slip through. It's not absolutely necessary but it would be nice if that could be retained somehow.
Drain Power is...well, interesting. It'll probably drain mana around the amount it gives to the Sorcery player, so it turns into a free casting skill booster.
City buffs, City curses and Warp Node and might or might not be worth casting but either way Sorcery has their double strength dispel to deal with them, and for city curses, they also have Spell Ward.

Overall, I think most of this is fine with the new versions, but we should probably add "Spell Blast and Drain Power has no effect" as an extra effect?

[Seravy]

How much diplomacy penalty do we want for this new spell, if any?
It doesn't directly cause any harm to anyone else, so removing it entirely seems most logical - but the effect is big enough that players will want to hold back on casting spells and it's kinda rude to make magic power out of someone else's spells so maybe we could keep some?
This is the effect currently implemented :
   

[rakenan]

Does the anti-Spell Blast and Drain Power effect work regardless of the target, or only if it would hurt the wizard casting Power Link?

Regardless, I'd put in at most a minor penalty for the base spell, but a fairly hefty penalty for every Spell Blast or Drain Power countered. Assuming it counters those spells even when they are not hitting the casting wizard, anyway - if you are Spell Blasting and Draining Power from a wizard, the game should already be considering the two of you hostile and diplomatic penalties should be piling up regardless.

[Seravy]

Regardless of target.  
Spell Blast, if successful, does have a diplomatic penalty already, from the target. A penalty from the caster of Power Link would make no sense. You never reached the point of selecting the target and even if you did, it might be someone else. Also no harm was done, other than you wasting your mana crystals.
Drain Power has no penalty either way because the target doesn't know who drained their power. The spell keeps the caster secret. (of course a human player can usually deduce "that person is the only one with Death books", but the AI doesn't work like that.)

A penalty for countering the spell isn't possible either way for two reasons :
-The AI won't cast those spells because it knows they'll be countered so the penalty pretty much never applies - It's a 100% counter so the AI literally will have a 0% chance to try casting them.
-The human player's relation to the AI is not an in-game variable, it's what the human player himself decides to do. They have complete freedom. The system isn't supposed to penalize the human player for someone else doing bad things to the human player. And the human player "penalizes" the AI by getting angry and dispelling the spell or declaring war or whatever else they want to.So this penalty is only relevant when the AI's spell is countered by the human or another AI, which isn't a thing because the AI isn't using those spells.

The global penalty would be more due to the fact that people will think "hey that person is leeching on MY spells and grows stronger from them. That's rude!". It's like someone digging out a 100 carat diamond from YOUR trash can and keeping it without asking for permission. Countering the two spells is at most a minor annoyance, but the power gain is massive, in fact so massive, players will seriously want to stop casting those spells. That's kinda the point, you can still use the spells, but unless it's exceptionally important strategically, it'll help them more than yourself.

[teelaurila]

Coming in from the sidelines with an alternative approach, as "give this to opponent if you do that" seems less than ideal against an AI, particularly one that has a big resource edge.
Could Suppress be something akin to Armageddon?: Needs to be taken down or will slowly win the game by wasting away the infra of others. Only this time magic rather than land.
So something like
Warp Aether: Apply cumulative negative (overland?) skill modifiers to everyone else (with some lower bound)
Suppress Aether: Prevent power from being turned to skill and cut power income from everyone else by a cumulative amount. Or only the latter.
Mana Freeze: Prevent power from being turned to mana (perhaps allow upkeep, or skip removing stuff due to no upkeep)

None of these specifically target low-cost spells - not sure that's necessary? But if that is desired, could effects cumulate per spell cast? Probably not easy to make the AI to get it and only use big spells...

[massone]

How much diplomacy penalty do we want for this new spell, if any?
It doesn't directly cause any harm to anyone else, so removing it entirely seems most logical - but the effect is big enough that players will want to hold back on casting spells and it's kinda rude to make magic power out of someone else's spells so maybe we could keep some?
This is the effect currently implemented :

The Power Link spell isn't generating any mana in my 5.75 game, and I don't see a bug fix in the 6.0 notes. Is this a bug or is there a condition that's not covered by the spell description in the image (which still seems to be the game's description)? I have Detect Magic on and the other 3 wizards on Arcanus are casting <500 spells every turn, and I'm getting nothing except -100 per turn cost, declaration of war with 1-turn warning (Maniacal Wizard), threat (Peaceful) and breaking Wizard's Pact (Lawful) with them specifically citing the Power Link and telling me to dispel it or suffer their wrath, even though the 5.7 notes only say it's a -1 per turn diplomatic penalty, which should be evened out by my Aura of Majesty. It doesn't seem to be treated as a minor inconvenience by the Expert AI. The impact seems much more severe than Great Unsummoning in the last game I played. The turn I cast Power Link, February 1411, the history graph showed a massive near vertical spike in my overall strength even though I'm getting 0 mana from it. I tested repeatedly through several turns, and lost mana exactly equal to my total mana upkeep each turn when I assigned no Power to mana generation, even though the three known Wizards cast Shadow Demons, Efreet, and Unicorns, which should have given me 700+ mana based on the formula, plus the Myrran Wizard who should be affected too even if they're not known yet, right?

[Seravy]

If it was shown on historian, you should be getting the extra power.
I have tested and it produced 252 then 625 mana for me on turn 1 and 2 when my normal income was 18. I have no contact with any other wizards, so yes, it does work even on wizards you don't know yet.
The mana production is a temporal effect applied at the end of the turn. Once the system recalculates your income, the shown mana values will no longer include it but the mana crystals you gained should be in your mana reserve.
For example I had +525 mana displayed when my 3rd turn started but opening the spellbook changed it to show -83. That's normal - you already gained the 525 mana for the last turn and the system can't display the gain for the next turn before the enemies made their move.


If that isn't how it works for you, post the save file and I'll check it.

[massone]

If it was shown on historian, you should be getting the extra power.
I have tested and it produced 252 then 625 mana for me on turn 1 and 2 when my normal income was 18. I have no contact with any other wizards, so yes, it does work even on wizards you don't know yet.
The mana production is a temporal effect applied at the end of the turn. Once the system recalculates your income, the shown mana values will no longer include it but the mana crystals you gained should be in your mana reserve.
For example I had +525 mana displayed when my 3rd turn started but opening the spellbook changed it to show -83. That's normal - you already gained the 525 mana for the last turn and the system can't display the gain for the next turn before the enemies made their move.


If that isn't how it works for you, post the save file and I'll check it.

I've attached my save for the exact turn I cast Power Link, and the turn after, plus a test turn for the 2nd turn after without any spell casts and only a tiny amount of Power assigned to mana. No mana gain from Power Link either turn, and it doesn't show up either in my reserves or in the mana income on the bottom right of the screen, but I did pay the cost of the spell.

(removed save games as issue was resolved)

If your test was on turn 1 and 2, could it be a problem with the formula for spells between 100 and 500 cost, since that's what my Wizards were casting?