If only we had a series of threads dedicated to a countdown of days left till release.

We can only dream of such a convenient thing though, am I right?

dragoaskani, did you check the thread you replied in?

did you check for any other posts by the same identity?

if no, OPEN eyes, learn to read, learn to think, then make sure brain is running, and in gear before releasing the post lever.

harpo

I can understand why you don't want lowering terrain to create water/island issues.  But I would prefer to see lower terrain turn plains terrain into swampland.  That way I can create a land bridge, then convert it over to swamps to slow down any wouldbe pursuers.

I am sure that I am in the minority, but I have to say that I hate this.

Magical energy necessary to change 100kg of dirt into mud: 8

Magical energy necessary to raise thousands upon thousands of tons from the bottom of the ocean: 5

Terraforming spells should feel epic, and at 50 mana they barely did.  At 5 mana, they are a gimmick.  Oooo, see how we have unreachable areas with goodies.  Oooo, check out the spell we have so you can reach them.

And don't bring up how city enchantments are cheap.  They are fueled by the the magic of the land, over a huge area, over time.

If you need it that badly for the campaign, tie it to bloody item, an artifact tied to the spirit of WhatHaveYou, and have the protagonist find it.

Like Frogboy said...feel free to make the spell cost as epic as you want...from 5-5000000 or what not.  Personally, I found 50 to be alot, but I play games with Low magic, resources and ravaged land, so 50 mana for me is alot.  

Yeah, the same way that I would not train units equipped with the Avtomat Liagushkov 112.

as did you, now follow instructions after putting your head inside an iceburg.

harpo

harpo, dragoaskani was being sarcastic.  Admittedly, sarcasm sometimes doesn't communicate well on forums, but in this case I thought dragoaskani's post was both funny and appropriate.  No need to start a flame war.  And by the way Frogboy, will FE still give us cancer?  I'm just dying to play the final version!  :-)

Not so sure you're in the minority here, old chap.

I couldn't believe my own eyes when I first saw this change in mana cost, my jaws dropped to the floor. The developers have done so many reasonable fixes and changes to balance, I didn't expect them to do something like this. In fact it's really the only thing done to this game the past year that makes me sad.

Besides balance too, it just don't feel right due to the epicness of this spell, as Tuidjy mentions here. It's far away from the scope and the pasting of the rest of the game, and makes this spell cheap as a hokus pocus trick (but powerfull indeed). 

Hopefully the AI won't use it, because I won't myself. I just don't see the fun in being able to do this stuff practically for free. I'd rather see it cost more then 50 mana too, but guess 50 mana might be an OK comprimize (and Earth level 3 at least).

I believe the Frog to be on deep water with this one.....

You're not alone, I've always disliked how this spell was handled. Where fire apprentices are learning how to throw a small ball of fire towards an enemy, and water apprentices learn how to slow down a single enemy, apparently one of the first things earth apprentices learn is how to move entire mountain ranges.

Bringing down or raising a mountain should be something special, something you see maybe once or twice in a single game. Something you do to bypass an enemy's defence line, giving you access to the heart of his empire.

At earth1 and 5 mana, it just seems very gimmicky indeed.

You are definitely not alone, Brad didnt think this trough enough. He is to stubborn to understand this though, so when he reads this post he will think "Nuh-uh, I did too think it trough! I wanted people to use this cool feature and I wanted to use it in post-release maps".....

AOW:SM had this mechanic as well. Very cool

Just to raise my voice and to show that there are people, who don´t think that this was a bad decision.

I love this change. Maybe its a little bit too cheap and it should be 7 - 10 Mana. But 50 was way too much and i never used it. Early game i could not afford it and later on there was need for it.

Its simply fun to shape the country like you want it and now this feature is useful from the beginning.

I agree with Tuidjy, 5 mana is a joke

I love this idea. Very interesting.

Perhaps it should be a higher level spell that is this effective, but over a 3x3 tile area and of course a bit more expensive (or maybe the amount it lowers/raises is affected by earth shards). This way it would be worth your mana and not ridiculously abusable at the very beginning of the game. It can be rather difficult especially with mountain ranges to select the correct tile that will make a passable valley anyways, a 3x3 square would solve that. The cost would prevent it from being spammable, as that is not convenience, that is game breaking. As far as balance goes, if FE ever became multiplayer EVERYONE would start with Earth magic and abuse it or risk being horribly abused by it. If one player decides to moat off his kingdom he can create entrances/exits on the cheap for his newly invincible kingdom while the other player is lucky if they can even find a way to invade if they don't have books of magic (which I always grab hehe) or luck out with an earth champion.

Coming from a comlpete outsider to the game, mods are fine, but changing the base game to your will , to point of a custom game-

-IMHO really diminishes the shared game experience.

I agree. As a general rule, things that make little sense break immersion (for me at least).

FE used to have a lot of those... many have been eradicated, but some remain and/or are re-introduced.

Alpha Centauri handled it perfectly: you had to work hard before being able to do it, you had to do it in steps and it took its sweet time, and it affected adjacent tiles too. Also you could trigger global climatic changes if you abused of it (I don't know if any of these is true for FE, I haven't used it)

I am very willing to test this fully.  I admit to being alarmed and worrying about abuse at first, but, assuming the AI can use the spell as well, this is actually something that sets this game apart, it is a talking point, a focus point of the game. 

We beta testers are all used to playing one way, and any large change like this, that will clearly change the fundamental way we play, thrown in at the last moment before release, will startle us.  But honestly, at 50 mana per cast, I NEVER used it until late game, but by then, the land was settled and frequently you needed to take the long way to destroy everything in your path anyway.  This way, you can, for better or for worse, make a bee-line for a specific point, or slow down an approaching army, create choke points; any number of tactical applications. 

I am warming up to this. 

The problem is it actually removes terrain strategy/tactics entirely.

There's a chokepoint here that I can use... oops, not anymore.

I'll set my defenses here - nope, you have to defend everything, because they could come through previously impassable terrain to get you.

So now you have to defend everything the same, you can't rely on terrain at all, and it's cheap to do.

End result - everything is passable and there are no particularly strategic points.

Well, in my version of the game Earth Magics are very rare, so it will be a nice power for them. I shudder to think how it will hurt the vanilla game with every new hero pretty much having Earth1. 

Yes.  I agree with the people who say it should go back to the previous cost or the terraform spells should be removed altogether.

My main problem with Brad's statement in defense of it as being 'fun to use' is that who cares if changing terrain is fun to use, unless it's fun to play the whole game, you know, that thing you're releasing in 8 days, with terraforming so cheap?  The game is not about raising and lowering terrain, or is it?

Also, and this is extremely important to understand here, telling people they can just change it is unacceptable.  You need to release a good product out of the box, but you know that already.

If you really believe this change is good for the game as a whole, improving the entire experience, and not just making the use of that spell fun, then go for it.  If not, re-evaluate.  But ask yourself - is it fun when terrain is lowered and now I get attacked from a different angle, and my strategic deployment to the chokepoint is ruined, and it only cost them a pittance in mana to do it?  Isn't that the sort of tactical move that should come at a price?  If nobody's using it, 50's too high.  If everybody's using it now, 5 is too low.

It should be a stressful choice whether to try to punch through the front lines or try and dig through a mountain range.