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Spells & Magic

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Spells & Magic

from JoeUser Forums

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The beta group has had an immense amount of influence already on the course of the game’s development. 

One example of this has been in the way we’ve been thinking of implementing magic in the game.  Often times, users don’t necessarily make specific suggestions but instead get us thinking on a different track than we previously were.

With Magic, originally players had 5 different types of mana – life/death, earth, fire, water, air. Controlling a shard would, each turn, put mana of the appropriate type into a sort of mana bank.

So what’s the problem with that? Plenty. First, it means that the guy who sits on the shards is going to win the game. It really aggravates our biggest pet peeve in these kinds of games – the game being won in the first 10 minutes and then spending the next 2 hours going through the motions.

Then there was the spell research. Originally you would research spells much like you research tech. You’d build academies and the points would go into whatever you were researching.  Besides being boring, it took away a lot of choices.

So instead, your academies generate spell knowledge (spell points) which you can then spend, at any time, to learn a particular spell.  Much much more fun.

THIS is why the open beta works so well though.  Without all the discussions and brainstorming here on ElementalGame.com we might have gone down the original path we had designed and then been committed to it (i.e. – once the expensive visual assets are produced, you’re pretty much stuck with it, that’s why we’re doing the cloth map and such because it’s cheap to make radical changes).

Update: Just realized that I didn’t talk about what we’re doing with the shard systems.

Spells require mana to cast but will also need certain shards (earth, air, fire, water) as well. So a spell may require 200 mana and control of 2 fire shards and an earth shard.

23,868 views 93 replies
Reply #76 from Elemental Forums Top

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Populous actually has nothing on Dominions. Volcanoes *shrug*, try creating a second sun in orbit to adjust global temperatures.

Reply #77 from Elemental Forums Top

I echo the concerns about stockpiling spellpoints and then spending them all at once to get whatever spell comes in handy.

That very much disples the imagery of Gandalf sorting through the libraries of Minas Tirith or a channeler huddled over his workbench, heating up a flask over a small burner...  It also spares a player having to make hard choices, which is half the fun of a 4x game.  Lastly, it feels kind of contrived to me.

As was the case during the technology discussion, I think not having access to all the same spells--in the same order--every time you play a given faction is key.  I also like the notion of Shards providing some kind of modest power-up effect for certain friendly spells, if only within a certain radius of the shard itself.

I'd also echo the concerns about "magic libraries" being built just like anything else.  Unless players are forced to make hard choices fairly early in the city building stage, every town starts to feel alike and most styles of play are reduced to getting cities that can build the most stuff (with a bonus if you can create specialty units--like in Master of Magic when you could build Hammerhands in a city with Adamantium armor).

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #78 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting TheColourOfHeartache, reply 76
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Populous actually has nothing on Dominions. Volcanoes *shrug*, try creating a second sun in orbit to adjust global temperatures.
You clearly haven't played Populous.

We're talking leveling mountains and tearing the "Happy Valley" a new chasm. Things that (unfortunately) cannot be done in Dominions. Dominons may be able to lower or turn up the degrees a little, but it doesn't raise volcanos or turn water into lava for the lulz.

Will I be able to turn water into lava? I don't know. But I hope so.

Reply #79 from Elemental Forums Top

What about global enchantments? And other city, unit area enchantments? What about tactical spells like teleports, walls, etc? What about spell manipulating spells such as Dispell, Counter Magic, Spell Lock, Spell Blast and others? All the spells on the screenshot except one seems to be direct damage, which is sad.

 Also, I really liked that spells in MoM and techs in MoO2 were not available all at once. A great boost to replayability, diplomacy and espionage (if it would be any). About limiting casting only one favorite spell, you could make cooldown time for a spell, especially in battles. Though, HoMM 1 system was nice in HoMM (and in old Kings Bounty) I can't see how it fits. There were also interesting system in Wizardry: a diffrent type of mana for every magic school with separate mana pool, so you were forced to use diffrent spells when mana in your favourite school ended.

Reply #80 from Elemental Forums Top

I disagree.  Analogy: channeling ability is like athletic ability.  One is born with a certain amount of athletic ability.  That athletic ability has to be directed/trained to a certain sport, and Olympic/Pro level athletes take years of training, skilled coaching, etc.

That's a flawed analogy, though. Athletic coaches tend to be athletes themselves, usually very successful ones past their prime. How many athletic coaches have you heard of that have been paralyzed since birth? That would be a more appropriate analogy. Someone who has and never has had any magical ability whatsoever is not likely to be particularly good at instructing someone else how to use it effectively.

What about global enchantments? And other city, unit area enchantments? What about tactical spells like teleports, walls, etc? What about spell manipulating spells such as Dispell, Counter Magic, Spell Lock, Spell Blast and others? All the spells on the screenshot except one seems to be direct damage, which is sad.

This is a beta. It's a very early beta, to boot. Right now it seems like they're concentrating on spells that require more mucking about in the engine itself, to make life easier for themselves and to produce a better game. Also note that all the spells we see in that screenshot are fire spells, which tend to be more damage-oriented to begin with...

If the contents of that screenshot make you sad, then you're expecting too much from the beta.

Reply #81 from Elemental Forums Top

In general, I am happy with this "small, magic empires" line of thought.  However, I want to de-emphasis the small factor.  Magical empire should be allowed to grow, when situation allows.   A large magical empire should be able to crush a small magical empire.

Magic Empire vs Might Empire

Just as a thought experiment, I'll like to have a comparison btn these 2 types of empire:
Limited quantityof powerful Natural/Magical/local/Summoned beasts VS Large quantity Mundane humanoid units/troops
Magical/Mental/Supernatural enchantment VS Physical/Technological/Organizational enchantment (i.e. armor)
Preserve local environment VS Big cities/settlement
Highest end spells VS Large quantity of mana collected
Trends to have smaller territory VS Trends to span the continent
Small economy VS Large

EWOM should provide a mechanism to force player build one of these 2 types of empire.   (And there is of course the 3rd type, in-between which will be quite common too)

I suggest a way to distinguish these 2 types of empire, but maybe there is some better way.   While normal might empire builds lots of city, Magical empire is comprise of mainly Magical towers (while I call it magical tower for the sake of simplicity, it can be treetop villages, dungeon, crypts, undersea palaces etc).  Magical tower are structures that have minimal impact to the surround environment, a structure that vitalize the land to let it achieve its full potential.    Because of that, there aren’t much city improvement can be built.  Only simplest and lowest end improvement like a simple barrack, smithy or market can be build.   The economy and the amount of manufactured goods, mandune units can be produced will be extremely limited, compared to Might empires' settlement.

Magic Tower haves 2 major advantages over Might's Settlement.  Firstly, the amount of spell knowledge (spell points as mentioned in OP) generated is proportional to the total number of Settlements/Cities on the continent, and inversely proportional to the number of Settlement/Cities you have.   If you are sharing the continent with a huge Might empire, even you do not process a lot of magic tower, your spells will be way more sophisicated/high level compared to them.   
(The blurb behind that is, the gods awards you for preserving the nature by giving you research inspiration)

The 2nd adv of it is that when the magic empire is under attack, natural/supernatural beings will suddenly shows up & help defend your empire.

Hopefully this will inspire!

Reply #82 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't buy the magic empires thingie. Not a tiny bit. In order to not to write a huge wall of text about why, I'm going to stick to my first sentence.

Reply #83 from Elemental Forums Top

In response to

Quoting Nick-Danger, reply 71

I disagree.  Analogy: channeling ability is like athletic ability.  One is born with a certain amount of athletic ability.  That athletic ability has to be directed/trained to a certain sport, and Olympic/Pro level athletes take years of training, skilled coaching, etc.

Same with Channeling ability.  Spell research is necessary, as is athletic training.

Pigeon Squared said:

Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 80

That's a flawed analogy, though. Athletic coaches tend to be athletes themselves, usually very successful ones past their prime. How many athletic coaches have you heard of that have been paralyzed since birth? That would be a more appropriate analogy. Someone who has and never has had any magical ability whatsoever is not likely to be particularly good at instructing someone else how to use it effectively.

Remember that I was replying to MrDelightful's question "The original post prompted a question in my mind, why research spells at all?"   Spells would need to be researched, much as an athlete needs to train skill -- just being born with great innate athletic skill does not negate the need to train.

My point was not about non-channelers/athletes helping channelers/athletes to train as your reply suggests.

Reply #84 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Luckmann, reply 78

Will I be able to turn water into lava? I don't know. But I hope so.

This got me thinking (ruh roh)...

Water --> lava and similarly powerful spells would be interesting.  I'd like to also see appropriate consequences such as (for water --> lava) an effect on the local climate -- increased temps, perhaps decreased moisture or increased humitidy, shifting wind patterns or increased wind speeds, rivers dry up due to waters absence, etc.  These consequences would have their own effects (wetlands change to prairies or savannahs, temperate forests change to jungles, etc.).

Spells of the power described should have effects beyond the immediate, obvious effects.

As the Devs have a lot on their plate, this could be deferred for later expansions/updates, but it'd be nice to eventually see.

Reply #85 from Elemental Forums Top

Hopefully, there is some feedback on my post 81 above.

In all TBS games I play, there is no incentive for me stop expanding until I am afraid that my empire spreads too thin too quickly, or the land grab is completed as there is no easily available land around.  This is fine for me.

However, there are situations that you are stuck with unfortunate start location that you cannot expand, or you failed the land grab.   Will EWOM provide a way to prevent me from a slow agonizing death?   I do see reorganizing my empire to become a small magical empire as a way to allow me to eventually win (i.e. via my non-military victory condition), as long as I can hold off the advance of nearby larger Might empires.

Can SD design the game in a way that, Magical Empire has the edge at defending? or especially good at defending specific choke points?  But these magical empire loose this edge when they attack?

For example, while magical empire is not inherently great at assaulting, they receive more goodies when they actually acquire new territory.   Say, if they capture enemies' mana node, it will steal the mana from the enemies' stockpile. And the amount stolen increases if they have higher % of Magical Tower compared to the enemy.

I am throwing some ideas here, trying to add some cons to larger empire in a fun way.   Various traditional TBS has added maintenance cost to larger empires, but that is not a fun way of adding cons.

Reply #86 from Elemental Forums Top

In reply to the magic vs might empires, it seems not only very, very dull to me that a magic empire can only get som many building improvements, and on the other hand it seems even more dull that you need magical beings defending you when you are under attack. I can see where it would be fun to let some empires rely more on magic than others, but an over the top difference like this is not needed. Just let some nations research faster than others and it should be fine. Also give some nations buildings and techs that are not available to others, other nations units that are elite and unavailable to others, etc and there will be a difference between nations that is clear enough and still interesting without the need to force it like Climber suggests.

Reply #87 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Luckmann, reply 78

We're talking leveling mountains and tearing the "Happy Valley" a new chasm. Things that (unfortunately) cannot be done in Dominions. Dominons may be able to lower or turn up the degrees a little, but it doesn't raise volcanos or turn water into lava for the lulz.

Will I be able to turn water into lava? I don't know. But I hope so.

That's because building mountains is micromanagement Dominions is all about the macro management. And a few degrees isn't doing justice to buffing your heat loving empire: ecconomy, army, everything while debuffing pretty much all your enimies across the entire game at once.

(I have played Populous, Populous 2 and Populous 3 (as much as it can be called Populous) None of them match Dominions for conceptual awesome in top level spells)

Reply #88 from Elemental Forums Top

Read this awhile ago and was thinking about it in relation to other games in the genre and related genres.

 

So getting back to the balance of "holdable" resources on the map. There should be some sort of flexability on multiple levels to powering your various spells.

By multiple levels, I mean you should be able to get everything you want, but you should have multiple choices on the what is the focus and specialization.

Imagine if there were various "guilds" of mages that determine what spells you can get based on what guilds you welcome into a city.

Now imagine if different city upgrades determine bonuses to the base spells, giving various permuations of stronger and weaker effects to the spells you have available.

Finally, imagine if the "holdable" resources also have various options on how they are harvested. This could further refine spell bonuses with various effects to the resources.

It could all be very dynamic, giving you access to all the spells avilable to the various guilds (standard fantasy archetypes like evokers, necormances, enchanters etc...), but there will be specific specialites that you can focus on. This way you will have a specific stregnth, but you aren't having a huge gap in your repitoire... you just won't be as effective with some spell as others.

Now the trcick is to make all spells necessary in some manner.

Also, on the athletic vs channeling ability, I think this was best handled in Gary Gygax's Mythos RPG.

Each character had a "potential" skill level, as well as their actual skill level. This was fun as hell trying to figure out how you would assign your stats.

This give you a chance to start low and develop high, or go for a stronger early ability at the cost of later gain.

Thanks for reading. I hope this game goes well.

Reply #89 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Shurdus, reply 86
In reply to the magic vs might empires, it seems not only very, very dull to me that a magic empire can only get som many building improvements, and on the other hand it seems even more dull that you need magical beings defending you when you are under attack. I can see where it would be fun to let some empires rely more on magic than others, but an over the top difference like this is not needed. Just let some nations research faster than others and it should be fine. Also give some nations buildings and techs that are not available to others, other nations units that are elite and unavailable to others, etc and there will be a difference between nations that is clear enough and still interesting without the need to force it like Climber suggests.

Come on,  building more stuff does not means it will not be dull!

A lot of TBS games already get "some nations buildings and techs that are not available to others, other nations units that are elite and unavailable to others, etc".   The end result is it is very easy to figure out what 'special' building to build or not to; after that is figured out, it ends up that bigger empire is always better than smaller empire.   Will EWOM offer an opportunity to break this unfortunate TBS fate?

In lots of TBS games, you need to have a large empire to win, whether you are trying a tech victory, diplo victory etc.

Can EWOM design it in a way that if you intentionally go for a smaller empire (i.e. you stop expanding well be4 you are capable of further expanding), you still have a very good chance winning a tech/diplo/etc victory?   A magical empire maybe one of the ways to acheive it.

Reply #90 from Elemental Forums Top



So instead, your academies generate spell knowledge (spell points) which you can then spend, at any time, to learn a particular spell.  Much much more fun.

Assuming it means that as long as you have enuf Spell points accumulated, you can even research highest-end spells during early game, I like this very much!    I agree with GW Swicord that pre-game MOM like spell book pick will further enhance the spell casting experience.

Building acadamy (mainly in cities) seems boring.  Is there some way to spice it up a bit?  This is my humble attempt here, let's have academy for the main life, death, earth, fire, water, air elements and a generic one.  Building an Fire academy make you acquire Fire spells quicker, than all other spells; and contribute close to nothing to water related spells.

Plus spell type specific academy, like a Summoning/Illusion/Bluff/Debuff/Direct Damage/etc Academy.  As their name imply, these academy contributes much more Spell points to specific types of spells.

 

 

 

 

Reply #91 from Elemental Forums Top

I like Climbers suggestion about magic vs might empires but how to balance that on all map sizes.... :\

Reply #92 from Elemental Forums Top

I really like climbers idea about large organized city forces with simpler magic and small elite nature forces with more complex magic. Could make for some very interesting games if designed well.