[.950][Balance] City Spells

Theres a Champion that gives you a spell called Obsession (i think) that is 25 mana for +5 Production/essence and a 1 gildar per turn, which is slightly better than enchanted hammers. Its pretty rare to get it but maybe worth mentioning.

You also forgot meditation, 5 mana for +1 mana/essence. 

I think that 1 initiative per essence is plenty, you can get up to 5 essence in a level 3 conclave city, that is a bit overpowered. 

There is also +1 mana per essence which I use extensively. Do you have an opinion on that one?

It is interesting to see how people value them differently. I never build troops so the troop buff ones are blank for me.

I also never built the grain ones but I don't know that I fully understand how grain is useful. I read that it just determines your cities max tier, but does it do anything else like feed your troops or increase growth or tax income?

I never even considered building units in conclaves, I don't think the very minor bonuses from those spells are worth it at all compared to a real fortress with a war college or a warrior temple.

Yeah I forgot about the mana one and messed up the costs a bit. So far troops haven't proven useful compared to champion stomping - they take too long to build, but my opinion might change with magnar or gilden. Grain determines how large your cities can get. A city with 4 Grain and 2 essence can easily become a level 5 city with or without the enclave bonus if you have both the +25% food and +1 grain per essence.

The city growth bonus is also OP, (a max town can only get +3 growth from buildings while idle!) whereas a single spell can accomplish that pretty easily with a conclave and has the added bonus of being exchangable with something else once the growth limit is reached. But that's only without taking consulates into consideration. Until something is changed about their massive growth bonuses I don't recommend changing it.

War colleges are pretty far down the tech tree, while the bonus initiative and hp is acquirable right away. Conclaves get one additional essence so the bonus is 2 higher than the same essence in a fortress. Plus for archers/mages the armor is considerably less important.

Yeah, I'm playing her right now (the wraith chick)...except that the first start I had the spell and then the second start (which I'm doing now), I don't have the spell. ?? Not sure why that happened...

I would like each specialization to be good at training a specific type of unit. Conclaves should be great at training staff wielding mages and generally magic resistant units. That is fine, especially since choosing a conclave to start is not the optimal choice. Towns are much better at research than Conclaves in the current build.

Sean I'm confused as to how you come to the conclusion that towns are better for research. The difference in essence of a conclave will always be 1 higher, and thus always provide 1 more growth from soveriegns call which is the maximum growth bonus (unless idle) for a town. You will also have more food from the grain spell, so the first city will be larger.

The bonus from slums is nice but level 4 cities aren't reachable until further down the tech tree (past consulates I think). Unless you are refferring to spamming towns for the looping bakery-type building bonuses?

The best tech rush strategy is to get all towns. As you point out, a level 3 Conclave gets +1 Essence and therefore +1 research and growth. But a town gets to level 2 and 3 about 50 turns faster. At that point they are getting the natural research bonus from the city level. That is +4 research at level 3. In addition, you would use that tech to rush to the second research tech at tier 3. That is an additional 2 research. So now a town is getting 6 research and is well on its way to level 4 because the other towns are providing lots of food. Sure a conclave can do 5 research at level 2 in a parallel scenario, but they will start to fall behind the longer it takes them to get to level 3. When they do, you have to recast your enchantments to gain the new bonus. At that point they are equal to towns and could be 50% better if you stop producing anything. But since no one in their right mind would stop producing, towns continue to get growth bonuses and have alot more food. Since towns offer extra ZoC and alot more gildar, they are the best choice for a tech rush. 

Towns can't build growth buildings until they become towns. So they reach level 3 faster, but not level 2.. I also said that Conclaves get +1 grain not +1 research which is important for those first city level up hurdles.

It's also important to note that not every faction will this be as beneficial. Altar for example can quest rush for rediculous prestige making the bonus growth from town improvements quickly seem meaningless. Essence is exponentially better the more you have and so paridan is often better with conclaves as well. Then we have magnar who can't build growth improvements at all...

It's an interesting concept, but it isn't hands down the best strategy. I like that the option for it exists though!

Good points all around. I will say that I don't think it is particularly balanced to have towns compete as well as they do. All the ways you mentioned for Conclaves to get ahead or equal come from spells and that +1 Essence, which is way overpowered. A town should grow much faster if you specialize in growth. It is bad that towns can specialize in research. It is bad that fortresses can do good research. I am much happier when a town and fortress only get the Study upgrade line of improvements. Giving all specializations this much research is not a great design. There should be no contest between a conclave and a town for research. The fact that there is means that specialization is failing. 

Cities that are only really good for one thing might make FE play like an iphone app. Considerably better on average, but not always, sounds about right to me. Once had a city in the middle of three grain tiles, total of 11 grain, which probably would've meant units with a lot of hp if I had a chance to train any there before it crashed. Maybe not as tough as soldiers from a full-fledged fortress but pretty damn close and a hell of a lot sooner. That's a good thing. Versatility is unpredictable.

Incorrect. Cities need to be very versatile at level 1. They should be specialized in a area of the game, but versatile at level 2. By level 3 they need to pick a focused plan, but still have some room. For example, towns should be able to choose something between growth and gildar specialization. At level 4 they should have a humming bird level of specialization so that this level 4 city is a unique combination of choices and shapes the way the player plays the game. At level 5 the specializations give way to a final empire wide benefit. This benefit needs to specialize the overarching strategy of the player. 

Allowing towns and fortresses to do the same thing as conclave muddies the waters of what the devs are trying to achieve. Sure a town needs to be able to have the choice of training specializing as much as a fortress needs to be able get some economic advantages. That does not mean each city deserves massive research levels with no effort in specializing to that goal. 

As to spells, I would like to see some of these enchantments changed to fit better into the overall scheme of city design. The essence mechanic is right, but the values for Avarice, Sov's Call and Meditation do not properly integrate into a good specialization strategy. I understand that the idea is to have early game weak enchantments and late game powerhouse enchantments, but it does not come through with the current city options and tech pacing. Even in the midgame, Inspiration is great. On the other hand, Avarice is way too expensive and only gives a trickle of gildar. Some balance is needed. 

Do you have any suggested changes?