Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Burnsaber: Oh, it's possible, but not from an AI perspective. The deviation of a spell is dependent on both the range of the spell and its precision, correct? Thus, what's to stop

Curse of Avalon
AAN
Range: 30
Prec: -10 (very important)
AoE: 10
Effect: Grants Luck (MR negates easily)
Secondaryeffectalways: Curse (no MR)

Sure, the computer will try to use this as a buff, not a debuff... but what if the computer can't target it more than a 'general area'? My experience is that in 'large battles' the spell will overlap offensive and defensive lines at times.

Once you get the computer to cast it, you can tune the precision of the spell to hit in the general area without always hitting the people you want.

Oh, also... is there any way to get a Battlefield Enchantment version of Haunted Forest?

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

[quote=JimMorrison;673174]The following response is so awesome, you need to roll awe morale check just read it. Advance with caution

Yeah, it's awesome, so it is possible. It also could be possible to make it its awesome landlubber counterpart (S/F), which bordersummons awesome T-Rexes on even more awesome fighter jets, awesomely accompanied by the whole League of Justice and the Watchmen. Unfortunatly my awesomthurgy is bit rusty and I can't make the requied monster sprites into existence by sheer force of will.

Only ones awesome enough for that kind of awesomthurgy magicks are Batman and Dr.McNinja.

Aezeal: Ahh.. the memories.. BG2 was awesome.

Mechanic is pretty cool, but theme seems like a LA man national spell. Perhaps I'll manage to have same kind of mechanic some of the missing spell combos.

Didn't that revive all dead troops as manikins on your side? It might be possible, but I don't how the game would respond when you cast the battlefield version when you have the global active too.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

I think you shouldn't make this mod into a "good spells with bad side effects/bad spells with good side effects" mod by accident. There's potential for cool ideas there, but I think it should be a minority of spells at most.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Thanks for the reality check. I gotta remember to keep the Vanilla favour. Currently there's two of them going into the mod (Trial by Fire F/S, Quickening Venom N/W), and one already done (F/N Release Inner Beast) that should be enough.

I just realized. I'm 8 spells ahead scheducle! If I manage to continue at this space, I should have the mod done by the end of month. Hopefully I (or some helpful soul :hint:) will figure something for the missing slots before I get the all of the currently planned spells done.

Oh look, someone listed the missing paths combinations. How convenient!
F/A, W/E, W/S, S/E, D/E, D/W

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Okay, I had spells listed, but then lost them. Here I go again.

Clinging Fumes
FA
Range: 20+
AoE: 1+
Prec: 2
Fatigue: 30-
Damage: 5+ (AP, Fire), 20+ stun (AN, no lifeless)
Secondaryeffect: FR -25

W/E Summon Clayman, or

Bog Down
WE
Range: 30+
AoE: 1+ (cloud)
Prec: 0
Fatigue: 50-
Damage: 10 (Poison)
SecondaryEffect: Earth Meld

W/S

Celestial Ice
WS
Range: 35+
NoE: 5+
Attack: One person
Damage: 3 AP (x3 vs. Undead, Demon, Magic), 10 AP Frost

More later, perhaps.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

I'll start with some bad news, see this spell?

I have made it and it works, but my testing shows that even quickened troops are unable to escape once stuck inside! I don't know why, but that's the way it seems. I might have tp scrap this then, since anything completely unresistable holds the seed of brokeness. Two N/E mages could hold any SC indefinately still and paralyzed by just this spell. Any opinions?

Unfortunately you can't mod that secondaryeffect. You can do those which are already in the game. Only way to reduce fire resistance is to give the unit barkskin.


Heh, nasty. But I already have Gaia's Revenge. I'll probably do the Clayman summon.

I already have quite a lot of undead hate in this mod. "Enforce Natural Order" and the best buffs (The "Seasonal winds", "Inner Beast", etc..) are non-undead only. In vanilla thought, there are few sacred hate spells. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why early sacred rushes are so powerful? But thanks for bringing the word "celestial" up, since that made figure this out:


Celestial Waters 1W1S - The caste conjures some enchanted water from the celestal planes. This water is quite refreshing and tastes good to regular mortals, but if it touches a fanatical servant of a false pretender god, it will burn her like thousand hells. (very low level, small aoe, does some AN damage vs sacreds)

Thanks and please, keep them going.

I also kept thinking on the sacred hate issue, and now I find myself wondering if I should do a H2 "smite sacreds" spell (just like smite, but on sacreds only). I know it is outside the jurisdiction of this mod, but it seems like a thematic and not too powerful way to try to fend off an early sacred rush.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

I don't believe sacred rushes are now considered overpowered, are they? I'm not sure.

You could make the Gaia spell MR-negates. I'm not quite sure what the justification would be, but it would make it more reasonable. A crazy thing you could add to it would be summoning of some vinemen as well. As in, the vegetation comes alive, some of it grabbing the enemies and some of it forming vinemen to finish them off.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Yeah, my feeling is that probably you should leave out overarching balance attempts, like "nerf sacred rushes". That's really down to QM and CBM, and if you feel his efforts aren't sufficient you could always make a bonus mini-mod with an anti-sacred spell.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Burn: We can't actually give resistances? How awful. That would give us so many more tools....

The reason that the Ice spell has two damage components, with one that does 'extra' damage to Undead, is so that it can actually hurt them... rather like Astral Fire is the only Fire that burns underwater, I wanted Celestial Ice to be the only type of Ice that can hurt Undead.

D/W

Stygian Flow
DW
Range: 40+
AoE: 1+
Effect: Feeblemind

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

You can give resistances (in chunks of 50 or 100%), but you can't take them away, because there are no spells like that in vanilla.

Most vanilla spell effects can't be modified. So, you can give +4 MR (like Antimagic), but you can't give +3 or any other value.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

You could make the Gaia spell MR-negates. I'm not quite sure what the justification would be, but it would make it more reasonable. A crazy thing you could add to it would be summoning of some vinemen as well. As in, the vegetation comes alive, some of it grabbing the enemies and some of it forming vinemen to finish them off.

good idea combining a buff witha summon or a damage spell with a summon.. at leat one should be in and this might be the best option. :D

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

or just summons.. summons are nice and decent battle magic and a bit overlooked till now.. don't knwo which paths you are missing but summons shoudl fill at least 2-3 spells. Especially in the paths which already have decent combat spells a summoning would add more than just another damage spell.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

You might be right, I haven't seen anyone complaining about it for the last month. Stradegy Guides seem to have switches the tactis people use. Perhaps I'm still traumatized by my first MP game?

Nice idea with the vineman summoning. I can imagine some fat mage going like, "I can't be bothered to both tie and beat them up, why can't the spell do it for me?".

I thought about this, and it seems that I've got yet another future project coming. As a side effect of figuring out spell ideas for this mod, I've got like dozen ideas for crosspath holy spells. Once I've cleared my other projects*, I'll start doing a "Priestly Domination" mod, to give priestly magic some extra "oomph".

I don't believe sacred rushes are now considered overpowered, are they? I'm not sure.

Oh, you meant it as a twin to Astral Flames? Oh, now I get it. I'll move the "celestial waters" to the future priest mod and take the celestial ice on the mod.

Stygian Flow: Proably MR resists, right? I'm having the oddest compulsion to intentionally mispell it as Styxian Flow :D

Llamabeast beat you to it.

Oh, there is actually 2 of them in them in the 0.2 (W/N summon kokytiads and D/N animate manikins) and the Clayman battle summon will likely be 0.3

* In order of completion:
- Mapping of explsprites and flightsprites
- CPCS and starting a MP game with it.
- Updating Alugra and starting a MP game with it.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Most of Aezeal's post was actually a copy of mine. Confused me muchly!

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

I have to say by the way, this mod is looking great. Sorry I haven't gotten around to the grammar bug-hunting yet. I'm actually quite looking forward to it. When I do I'll probably produce a bazillion comments and suggestions as well.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Burn: Actually, the Styg(x)ian Waters spell was directly intended to _not_ have MR resists. Yes, it's meant to be a mage-killer.

Any way we can actually 'silence' casters for a combat?

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

No rush. I'm currently working on the #explsprites and #Flightsprites, since mapping them will help me to make this mod just that small bit better. I think I really nailed "Curse of the Four Horsemen". It has very ominous combination of graphical effects. I'm so ahead of scheducle that I can dip on this kind of side project for a while (I have already mapped to 10180! I'll probably manage to release them in the weekned.

I'll gracefully accept any suggestions on themes and balance. I've mostly struggling to get the spells written in code, making them work and finding the right blingblings for them to do any real balance testing. Most of the current values are rough estimates :shock:

Curse you casting AI, curse you! You have once again foiled a great spell! The AI is too dumb to specifically target mages with that spell, it would most likely throw it against the highest HP target. Besides, Feeblemind is totally crippling affliction, it would destroy SC's on the spot. (I mean, loss of magic and -5 MR, ouch!). Way too powerful.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Burn: I'm well aware of what effect Feeblemind has on SCs. That was the point.

I had an idea for a Blood/Astral combat spell, but I don't think it can be done. Can you create a spell that does 'Astral Corruption' for the length of a combat? That is, any non-Blood spell cast has a chance to call a Horror to the battle?

S/E

Spectral Blades
SE
Range: 40+
Fat: 30-
Prec: 1
NoE: 10+
Target: 1 person
Damage: 14 (AP, MR negates)
SecondaryEffect: Illusion-kill (whatever the effect of the Eye of the Void is)

Another option:

Summon Phantasmal Mammoth
SE (perhaps AE)
Range: 0
Fat: 80-
Effect: Battle-summon Phantasmal Mammoth

Phantasmal Mammoth
HP: 1
Prot: 0
Att/Def: 8
Mor: 15
MR: 13
Enc: 3
Size: 6
Graphic: Elephant
Ethereal, Trample

D/E

Blighted Troops
Range: 30+
Fat: 40-
AoE: 1+
Damage: 30+ (stun)
Secondaryeffect: Decay

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

The phantasmal mammoth would be funnier if you could do MR-resists trample.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Truman: True. However, I don't think you can do it unless you can type all of a unit's damage to MR resists.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

I had a couple more ideas. I promised that I won't do any more of these buff-spells with drawbacks, but hear me out. Besides I'm scrapping the F/S debuff-buff spell and making it jsut a regular buff-spell, so I have "slots" for more!

There isn't any large AoE grant ethereal spell in the game. You can use "Body Ethereal", but you need a lot of mages. I wondering if I should scrap the horrormarking. I'm just thinking that this could be a dat too good with "army of lead", "army gold" and "protection" to ignore the penalty.

Invulnerability is out of reach to normal troops in Vanilla, and for a good reason. But this might be a balanced way to introduce it. Any thoughts if I should actually make it better? The resistance maluses are pretty crippling. Especially late game.

Umm.. No? This is not a "balance" mod. Unresitable feeblemind is just no fun. And if I made it, it would jsut warp the late-game to revolve around that single spell.


Yeah, it's not possible.

If I decide to scrap Mind over matter, I'll probably do something like this. Illusion-kill is not possible however. But you just need 1 AN damge to nail those illusion(ed) bastards so a similar effect should be possible.


I decided not to any new units in this mod. The advantage of not using any monsternumbers/nationnumbers/sitenumbers is so good, that I'm not going to give it up. This kind of mod is best when it's 100% non-clashing with any other mod. Want use these spells with Skaven? Tomb Kings? CBM? Go ahead!

Hmm, slightly improved Ghost Grip. I like it.

Thank you guys! If you like the "Mind over Matter" and "Baptism of Hades", I should have all main spell slots filled! Now I just need 3 more UW combat spell, if they could be single path, that'd be awesome.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

Yeah, "Mind over Matter" and "Baptism of Hades" both seem potentially very powerful, but also they're pretty cool - I like them.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

what paths UW spells do you need?

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

I like mind over matter. I like the effect of baptism of hades, but I don't like the idea of dousing your units in water... every battle... to make someone invulnerable like achilles, who stayed that way until he died.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

When is v0.3 due Burnsaber? I thought I might make a start on the checking, but it might be easier to wait if the new version's nearly done.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

It will be out tomorrow with 30+ spells.

Re: CPCS - CrossPathCombatSpells - v0.2 is out!
 

All main spells done! Now I'll have to move my testing underwater.

So I came up with a cool idea for E/W. I'm just a bit afraid it might be unbalanced. Here it goes:

I just really find myself liking the theme of this. Defeated by mud, that's just priceless.

So it Earth Grips, Slimes (halved att/def/AP) and gives Curse of Stone (moving causes d4 fatique points and striking d8 fatique points). This will pretty much screw anything without reinvogration. Perhaps I should make the Curse of Stone effect MR resists? Then it really won't affect anyone in the long run.

These are what we have currently. The paths or path combos should be those available to UW nations.

Baptism of Hades had to be scrapped, apparently the lighting vulnerability from Ironskin overrides the frost vulnerability from stoneskin and that overrides fire vulnerability from barkskin. I made it a niche undead-healing spell since I had no other ideas. (waters from tartarus is pretty good, so your D/W mages can cast that).

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

You want the UW spells to be for the UW nations? Hmm. I had thought you wanted them so that the land nations can compete better, but that's also good...

If they are meant to be for UW nations, then Chaotic Currents (which is a neat spell) should be W/S. I don't think any UW nation gets Air magic.

I don't think the Acid spells are allowed underwater, correct? If so, E/MA Atlantis could use a F/W spell.

Acid Muck
WF
Range: 30+
Fat: 40-
AoE: 1+
Effect: Rust (Def negates)
SecondaryEffect: Strong Poison

Polluted Stream
W/D
Range: 35+
Fat: 40-
AoE: 1+
Damage: Strong Poison
SecondaryEffect: Disease (MR negates)

As for balance issues... if these spells are used, then you're changing the balance. The size of the change may not be great, but you're still changing it. Therefore, I don't see where the issue is a problem, theoretically. I realize that I generally suggest much larger shifts, and it's perfectly fine to refuse them. I am a little puzzled by the categorical nature of the balance discussion.

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

Actually, I'm trying to fix the issue of seeing the same spells in underwater over and over again, but that is also a valid point. Why not do both, actually? Let's make sure that each magic path has easily castable UW combat spell, and then add some cross-path spells for the fun of it.

Let's see from the manual..

Air: Most of the lighting and illusion spells are castable underwater. Is OK, me things.

Astral: Loses only Stellar cascade types. Will be okay.

Blood: It must suck to be these guys underwater. I really feel that shark summons should be blood spells, but I'm not going to mess with vanilla spells. Let's leave this as it is.

Death: Loses some cloud spells, but retains Shadow Blast and it's ilk. Skelly spam still works.

Earth: Loses almost all of direct attack spells. I'll add one pure-earth UW spell. (Most likely crushing pressure, I'll fix the theme in spell description.)

Fire: Ouch. Ouch. It's a shame that vanilla has that useless "Boil" spell. Since I'm not going to mess with vanilla spells, I'll have to try to figure something out. I mean it's thematic for fire to suck underwater, but at least some decency!

Nature: Loses vine arrows and combat summons. I've given them a direct poison damage spell to compensate. A UW version of howl with underwater animals could also be thematic and hideously easy to make. Witness:

#newspell
#copyspell "Howl"
#name "UW Howl"
#damage "XX"
#spec "XX"
#end

Water: Will be okay, and most UW crosspaths will have it.


Yeah, it's neat. But the blinking effect will be annoying as hell, especially if it is massed by horde of mages. But my testing also shows it to be risky. That pesky ichtyid struggled himself right next to my mystic and pierced him. But W/S is much more thematic. I'll have to ponder this.

Thanks! Now I have my Fire UW spell. "Acidize" (note: name needs work) with pretty much similar effect. I mean, the water is already there, so it just needs some alteration by fire magics.

I'll give this the same deal as the previous one. By death magic, you pollute water that's already there.

It's just that I'm not trying to change the actual game, just add more options in combat magic usage and give low-path mages more useful spells. Powerful spells "warp" the gameplay to revolve around themselves. The "auto-feeble" spell you suggested would have a single-handedly made the U/W mages most powerful mages ever. I admit that I'm doing some balance changes with this mod, notice how most buffing spells won't work on undead? Inanimates? Mindless? In there lies numereous popular SC chassises, unable to reap the benefits of this mod, perhaps allowing some new contenders in.

So umm.. I need a point. Yeah, I'm not going for a huge change, but for a small one. This mod won't make any excisting stragedy obsolete, but try to raise others on par with them. For example, I'm afraid that "Traveller's Curse" would be too strong against SC's, nulling that stragedy option and thus making the game that less stragedically richer.

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

Do you really want land nations to be more powerful underwater? Is that a considered balance change that you think needs doing?

I am nervous of significant changes like that, because it makes the potential user base rather smaller. However, I'm prone to excessive caution in such things so feel free to take no notice. :)

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

Actually I should mention I do like the fact that you're avoiding including buffs which may help Tartarians.

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

I think you discard the dynamic nature of strategy in your assessment of the spell, but that's fine.

My observation to you is that strategies become obsolete for any number of reasons, and obsoleting a strategy based on technology (such as this mod) is just as valid as obsoleting a strategy based on tactics or operational methods. Actually, in this instance, it is _more_ valid because it is consensual.

I could easily argue that the current end-game of Dominions being focused on SCs and large-scale battle magic makes many strategies non-competitive. If you can enable five strategies by disabling one... what do you choose, if your goal is to increase strategic variety?

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

I'm fairly sure that an unresistable, fairly easily cast Feeblemind spell would pretty much effectively neuter the late game. You wouldn't be freeing up any strategies, you would be rendering -any- unit with less than 25 MR fairly obsolete, unless it specifically relies neither on MR, or casting ability (mundane recruitable infantry, here I come!).

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

Jim: That's just it, though. I did say 'completely unresistable'; that is, nothing protects you.

Does it 'destroy' every current late-game strategy? AFAIK, yes, it does. However, look at the current end-game. There are only 2 effective late-game strategies that I am aware of: SC combat, and large-scale battle magic. If there is a spell that gets rid of those two, what will be left? Whatever was there before those strategies came into place. If those strategies are more numerous than the ones currently available (that is, if the deprecated strategies in the current regime are greater than 2), then this spell increases strategies.

However, realize this spell is a silver bullet, and a fairly obvious one. What we are talking about is a theoretical dynamic. I don't think the actual dynamic would change very much. Since it isn't that difficult to get a mage capable of casting this spell (Kokythiad) by the late game, everyone would have this spell. People would react and find other strategies that make this spell useless. Then this spell deprecates itself due to the nature of its narrow effect.

In the end, I am not pushing for this spell. I'm simply illustrating the possibilities, and noting that the current late-game paradigm is dominant to the point of paralyzing the player base. Is this really healthy?

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

That's where we disagree. Yes, people push for late game power, and that power largely supplants the early game power. Rendering many late game options unusable, and forcing a return to early game techniques does not actually create anything, it just removes something that is demonstrably better than what it replaced, forcing reversion to the initial form.

I think that (myself included) more people would simply refuse to play in a game that had that spell available, than would jump for joy because it was there.

I simply cannot see any reason that it makes the game more fun to remove the MR check. If it were MR-resists, it is technically comparable in overall usefulness to Enslave Mind - a spell that is considered extraordinarily powerful in the game currently.

Another interesting idea, would be if it were a battlefield summons spell (can't have too many of those!), that created some "Spectral Archers" or some such, who came equipped with Bow of Botulf. Then you can fling around a bunch of Feeblemind, but it's not as directed or focused. I think this option would still be very potent, without making the most powerful endgame options suddenly completely worthless.

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

Yeah, what can I say. I guess I'm a vitalist*. Besides, death has the best summons already and skele spamming is very good battlefield stragedy and MA/LA ermor are powerful nations, why make them better?


I kinda forgot to mention that spells I'm adding will be quite.. minor. Single path, low pathcost and low level attack spells. The idea is that all mages have something to cast in underwater battle. Let's see, "Ink Strike" is N1 spell that severly poisons single guy. Acidize will be F1 AoE 1 cloud spell that does 1 damage and rusts armor (the idea is that it will only rust armor on the first round and on the second round the armor will be destroyed by the attack if the target stays in the cloud). I'll probably make Morrison's "deep drowning" pure earth1 spell and low level, and limit targets to one. Not really that powerful spells, but readily available to all nations and mages.

What I think this will change? You will see some more spells flinked in underwater, especially in the early game where it hurts most. It's kinda nuts that you have reach Evo 4 before you can have your first direct damage spell. You know, unless you're R'lyeh, in which case, Thau 2 will work fine.

On the balance discussion:

Well, Vedalkenbear said it some time ago. He his going for a large balance change and I'm going for a very minor one. The stragedic theory being thrown around is quite intresting to read. Some of Vedalkenbear ideas have merit, but it is not this mods intention to test them. Like JiMorrison said, it would be hard to make people play a mod that would do so dramatic changes.

*if you did not get the joke, read more Terry Pratchett. Your quality of life will improve.

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

Okay nice, sounds good then. I didn't realise the UW spells were planned to be so minor; I agree it would be fun to have at least *something* to do with your underwater fire mages.

I hope you'll excuse my little checks about the path of the mod. :) I just know from experience that making the things can be sufficiently exciting that checks can sometimes be useful!

Re: CPCS - v0.3 is out!
 

Yeah, it's easy to get lost in your own work. I'm the sort of person who needs checking on once in a while. Just look at Alugra, there really is some stupid ***t in there, since I was just too excited and had too many ideas to notice how clustered it got. But that's not really the point of this thread.

I only have few more spells to add. I'll have version 0.4 with all the spells on and going, before weekend. Then I'll wait for the llamabeasts grammar fixes and suggestions + do some balancing testing of my own. Then 0.4 will be destroyed and glorius and grammatically correct 0.8 will rise from the ashes. Then I'll start recruiting for the MP game.

Re: CPCS - v0.4
 

Ok, it's (sorta) done! We hit a nice mark of 46 new spells. Now this thread can rest in peace, as it has fulfilled its purpose. I got the spell mechanics and themes I needed, and some mental support to keep my worst enemy (me) in check.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you guys for your ideas and support. Althought I didn't add many suggested spells just as written, the ideas and themes were absolutely necessary. Your names will forever live on, etched in the mod readme-file for all eternity!

Now.. I'm going to start a SP game and check on this monstority I have released.

Re: CPCS - v0.4
 

Jim: Hmm. The dynamics are interesting. I do think that Bow of Botulf-wielding summons would be just as good as what I propose. (BTW, did I mention that the Feeblemind spell is supposed to have godawful accuracy?) But then, how hard is it to get a Storm up to protect your SCs?

Also, I believe it is an exaggeration to say that removing SCs _in late game_ would necessitate a return to early game. Surely, having 2 300-piece armies face off against each other when both sides have attained level 9 research will be very different than both sides having attained level 2 research, no?

Here's another option. Is there a way to _offensively_ cast Returning on someone? That is, place the Returning 'buff' on a unit, so that when it's hit, it's teleported back to its capital?

That might have the same effect.