Floating Cities Idea

from Elemental Forums

1. to create a floating city you must learn/research the "Buoyant Earth" spell

2. pick a city to cast it on.

3. the cost of the spell rises exponentially (something the people helping the demigod team should get) with the city size. It should cost both mana and essence

4. Its should also cost mana to both maintain the cities place and to move the city.

5. If the Channeler can not or chooses not maintain the city or the spell is negated,  the city will crash down onto the tiles it was suspended above.If its above land, it badly damages/destroys itself (depending on the tile) while crushing practically everything underneath. If its over sea, the city becomes an artifical island?

6. the city will need a portal connected to earth or a similar device to receive resources - else the denizens of the place may starve.

Luckmann's Idea

simply having the city 'anchored' to the ground by massive chains or similar, acting as bridges. By massive, I mean truly, enormously, enchanted, massive chains. Enough to travel along, to and from the city.

When and if mobile, the chains are unhinged and retracted, severing the city from any and all support. It cannot send or recieve landborn caravans and cannot harvest out-of-city fields. Essentially, the city will inevitably starve and run out of resources in due time.

7. The city can only directly be attacked by spells and flying creatures/people dropped off by flying creatures

16,281 views 12 replies
Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting NTJedi, reply 1
 

Check out this thread which mentions this suggestion and several others as well:

   https://forums.elementalgame.com/345231

 

 

Its not the same, you just suggest floaty things, my post suggests how to implement a floaty thing

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Not really something interesting if just dispelling the spell will nearly destroy the city. Too much effort on something that can be destroyed too easily.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Vicente, reply 3
Not really something interesting if just dispelling the spell will nearly destroy the city. Too much effort on something that can be destroyed too easily.

the way in which its dispelled dispell and the amount of effect it takes are up for debate, for instance you could argue it would take alot turns to do and still be within the caster's range (and has has to stay still while doing so) or maybe that he /she has to be on the thing first

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Original Paster:
[...]
6. The city will need a portal connected to earth or a similar device to receive resources - else the denizens of the place may starve.
[...]
I was actually thinking about that just now. I was considering simply having the city 'anchored' to the ground by massive chains or similar, acting as bridges. By massive, I mean truly, enormously, enchanted, massive chains. Enough to travel along, to and from the city.

When and if mobile, the chains are unhinged and retracted, severing the city from any and all support. It cannot send or recieve landborn caravans and cannot harvest out-of-city fields. Essentially, the city will inevitably starve and run out of resources in due time.

NotJedi:
Check out this thread which mentions this suggestion and several others as well:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/345231
And it's been mentioned in at least three other, previous threads.

Edit: I hate quoting on these boards.
Edit2: Also mentioned here, and here.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Szadowsz, reply 4

the way in which its dispelled dispell and the amount of effect it takes are up for debate, for instance you could argue it would take alot turns to do and still be within the caster's range (and has has to stay still while doing so) or maybe that he /she has to be on the thing first

This spell should be dispelled following the same rules that affect any other spell, doing special rules just for this spell seems like a mistake. So, while I have no idea how spells will be dispelled, I think they won't probably be too hard to dispell. Probably to be "fair" the cost to have a nice chance (50%) to dispell a spell should be the cost that the spell took to cast. But this spell would allow you to invest a lot of resources and time in something that could die the moment the dispell takes effect, so the equation of "dispelling ~= cost of thing been dispelled" just breaks horribly.

And that's not taking into account crazy things like using cities as bombs (just cancelling the spell yourself) and things like that.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Luckmann, reply 5


I was actually thinking about that just now. I was considering simply having the city 'anchored' to the ground by massive chains or similar, acting as bridges. By massive, I mean truly, enormously, enchanted, massive chains. Enough to travel along, to and from the city.
When and if mobile, the chains are unhinged and retracted, severing the city from any and all support. It cannot send or recieve landborn caravans and cannot harvest out-of-city fields. Essentially, the city will inevitably starve and run out of resources in due time.


Edit: I hate quoting on these boards.

That actually sounds pretty neat and presents the choice - be able to be attacked and recieve supplies or don't and  eventually starve

Also I have single-handely managed to break these forums twice trying to quote people

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I've been fighting for floating cities for a long time. (you'll see from how both of luckmann's links are to my posts ^_^ )  I think longer than bear cavarly.  I'm glad somebody else picked it up.

However, I do not think portals are the only way to sustain it.

 1 > you could raise several tiles including one with a farm

2 > flying creatures...   Balloons are pretty classic fantasy objects as well.  If you manage to tame giant eagles,

3 > "magestic road" spell > establishes a trade route where otherwise one could not exist (across impassable terrain, over water, through the air)  This spell would of course take both mana and essensse, and possibly require upkeep (I don't know if essense replaces upkeep or not)

 

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I want Storm Giant castles in the clouds too, but isn't the real underlying question here whether the engine will have any 3D mobility for units? I've been poking the devs in a variety of contexts about their lack of response to the questions about stuff that is not 'land-based' in our pre-beta fantasies and if they've responded, I missed it.

"Majestic Road" sounds like a great overland spell idea, and again reminds us 'forum geezers' how long we've been waiting for some basic info on how mana and essence might work. It does seem like a good candidate for mana+essence to cast, and spell design in general might benefit from the idea of using essence to offset or eliminate a mana upkeep cost.

p.s. to landisaurus: Since you invited Grammar Nanny heckling elsewhere...your number 3 has three spelling errors and the punctuation is entirely artistic. I'm deliberately not checking what I just typed above--odds are fair that I have a spelling booboo too. ;)

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Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 9
the real underlying question here whether the engine will have any 3D mobility for units? I've been poking the devs in a variety of contexts about their lack of response to the questions about stuff that is not 'land-based' in our pre-beta fantasies and if they've responded, I missed it.

"Majestic Road" sounds like a great overland spell idea

They have not mentioned the limitations yet so I created this thread to kind of bring it to there attention again that we do want this

Majestic Road sounds awesome and is an example of the context sensitive spells that would make this game great

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 9

p.s. to landisaurus: Since you invited Grammar Nanny heckling elsewhere...your number 3 has three spelling errors and the punctuation is entirely artistic. I'm deliberately not checking what I just typed above--odds are fair that I have a spelling booboo too.

you don't that I can see. 

 

For some reason when I suggested the Majestic road, I thought of the yellow brick road (wizard of oz) meets snake way (dragon ball).  

As Szahowsz suggests, I think it is important that we remember to consider the mechanics we already know exist in the game when coming up with new ones.  Its from a good set of interconnected mechanics that I feel make games feel 'complete'

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting landisaurus, reply 11

Quoting GW Swicord, reply 9
p.s. to landisaurus: Since you invited Grammar Nanny heckling elsewhere...your number 3 has three spelling errors and the punctuation is entirely artistic. I'm deliberately not checking what I just typed above--odds are fair that I have a spelling booboo too.
you don't that I can see. 

 

For some reason when I suggested the Majestic road, I thought of the yellow brick road (wizard of oz) meets snake way (dragon ball).  

As Szahowsz suggests, I think it is important that we remember to consider the mechanics we already know exist in the game when coming up with new ones.  Its from a good set of interconnected mechanics that I feel make games feel 'complete'

:{( = moustache sad face

I have no h

Vicent why wouldn't different spells have different costs to dispell? spells like say shield taking the same amount of effect as a potentially game-ending spell of doom to dispell would be silly as then it wouldn't be wporth putting the effort in to cast it