Improvement Suggestions

from Elemental Forums

It seems to me that the spell system could use some upgrades and variety. Particularly the Life/Death path. For example, why not a Shadow path, unlocked by having both Life and Death Apprentice that provides some of both Life and Death path spells, as well as its own unique spells? Further, shouldn't Life spellcasters have accesss to spells that cure lingering injuries for champions, rather than having to find potions to do it? Also, shouldn't Life spellcasters have spells that disrupt the magic that animates the undead, kind of like a Sunder spell that works on them? Lastly, it would be nice if someone should manage to get all four elemental spell books as Archmages that it unlocked a High Mage spell tree with its own spells of power beyond that found in other spells, and requiring ownership of at least 1 shard of certain types to cast?

As an aside, it would be nice to be able to create your own items and magic items, with an improvement being required for normal item creation, and this improvement and a spell required to create magic items. The former requires gold and iron, the latter requires gold, iron, and mana. A similar system to the unit design mechanism could work here.

Lastly, it's rather silly to have to have a race trait or scroll to retreat from battle. A better mechanic would be for those without that treat retreating to kill any  trained units 50% of the time, and to reduce the current hit points of Champions by 50% and Soverigns by 25%.

 

Just some thoughts. Comments? Ideas?

54,550 views 12 replies
Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Thank you for your positive reply. Another thing that occurs to me is that (especially for Life spellcasters, perhaps for all of the Mage class) there should be a way to dispel spell effects during combat, and to remove overland spells on the strategy map, at a cost of mana equal to twice the casting cost of the relevant spell. Also, a Cure spell to remove poisoning and other negative non=magical conditions would be nice, too.

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Two suggestions:

- Create a Mod that includes all your suggestions. Or

- Try some of the Mods available.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

RE: the "shadow path" - you'd need to mod it separate from both existing Life and Death paths, as both of those are exclusively unlocked (i.e. you can only have one or the other) by the choice of Kingdom/Empire.  For instance, if you subjugate a Kingdom sovereign with an Empire faction, you won't be able to increase their existing level of Life magic.

This also affects which type of shard you get for Life/Death shards.  Lots of Life/Death magics are much less effective if you don't have any of the corresponding shards.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Hmm, perhaps it would be possible to mod a custom race that can use BOTH life and death shards and spells?  That would be interesting, if so. Specially if you can create spells/units/Champions  that would only be available for that race.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Nerf requests....Kraxais Betrayal ability seems overpowered. It should ONLY have a chance of success equal to the Unrest level (for example, it will work on a city with 25% Unrest 25% of the time, and regardless of success or failure, the money is spent anyway) and a faction's Capital province should NOT be vulnerable to this ability. As it stands, it allows someone to capture your last city, if it is your Capital, without firing a shot. Your Capitol should only fall to actual Military might  NOT Betrayal.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting anc40, reply 6

Nerf requests....Kraxais Betrayal ability seems overpowered. It should ONLY have a chance of success equal to the Unrest level (for example, it will work on a city with 25% Unrest 25% of the time, and regardless of success or failure, the money is spent anyway) and a faction's Capital province should NOT be vulnerable to this ability. As it stands, it allows someone to capture your last city, if it is your Capital, without firing a shot. Your Capitol should only fall to actual Military might  NOT Betrayal.

THAT is an interesting condition. I like it!

I recommend you recommend this in it's own thread. The cost associated with the cast may be too high if you include this condition though...

 

 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Surrender: When the sovereign of a faction surrenders, it makes no sense for the cities and resource structures under their control to disappear. Instead, each city should have a percentage chance of joining the faction the sovereign surrendered to. Any attached resource structures should also join the faction if the unrest check succeeds. Any cities that do NOT join the faction should be turned into a Neutral city that functions like a minor faction that continues to generate research , giildar and mana, as well as build improvements and  turn out units, based on the original factions behavior. (However, this minor faction should NOT produce pioneers.) These neutral towns should be able to be bribed to join another faction, with the same rules specified in a previous post. If the bribe is successful, the city, resource buildings, and any units they created joins the faction, and they turn over any research, mana and/or Gildar they have generated and still have (in the case of Gildar).

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Suggestions for Undead race...undead, being without emotion or passion, should be immune to fear effects. Also, given that they are not "alive" in the usual sense of the word, they should be immune to Death magic, the Reap ability (they have no life force to steal)  and be 100% immune to Cold / 50% resistant to Lightning, as being bone they have no soft tissue to damage.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

But what about the female units?  They are spirits, so they might still be affected by the elements (except Poison), like Banshees are.

It would be good to implement any changes to Undead skeleton monsters (and the regular skeletons which do not happen to be part of the Undead race).

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Edit from original message:

Female Undead spirit units should take damage normally from fire, but half damage from lightning and none from cold, as they are not material creatures and do not have a physical body to damage.  Also, skeletal undead should be immune to damage from daggers, spears and other piercing weapons as they have no soft tissue to damage. They should take half damage from slashing weapons like swords and axes. Blunt weapons such as clubs, maces, etc. however should do full damage. As a counter to this physical resistance, Life spells should be created. For example , a version of Sunder called Holy Bolt could be created for champions and sovereigns with at least Disciple in Life Magic spell books that does Holy damage for 2 points/level +2 for every life shard the faction possesses but can be resisted by the attacked undead unit for half damage. Those who reach Mage status should have access to Holy Strike, a spell that damages ALL undead on the battlefield for 1 point/level +1 per life shard possessed by the faction which can't be resisted. Life Arch Mages should have access to the awesome Dust to Dust spell, which takes one tactical turn to cast and causes all Undead units on the battlefield who fail to resist to be instantly destroyed. With magic items, Accessories that cause weapons to do extra Holy damage and Holy versions of weapons such as the Boreal Blade that add Holy rather than Cold damage should do full damage to Undead spirits and ignore the penalty to physical damage of skeletal Undead.

As a corollary, those Undead Champions and Sovereigns with Death magic spells books should have reversed version of these spells and items that use Death magic for the same damage versus opponents that are alive. Elementals, Constructs and other Undead units however, should be immune to these spells and items.  Also, the Death Arch mage mass kill spell should be called Death Knell that each unit that fails its resistance check and is slain has a flat 25% of that unit returning from the grave after the combat under the control of the victor as the same unit but with an Undead template...this unit has the same racial qualities as the original unit (healing abilities, and any Life spells books, however, are lost) and the unit is considered to be Undead for all spells and conditions that apply to them. Your thoughts?